The idea of eating according to another person’s whims, eating what doesn’t necessarily accord with the other choices of my day, frightens me.

You earned the eventual love story with your restraint.

I didn’t want her near me, because she was the only one able to see me for what I was, but I couldn’t lose her for the very same reason.

The momentary hardness that crossed his face during arguments was total now, and occupied every part of him.

That is, I could understand that a truthful account of it, according to actual events, would sound disturbing, but I did not feel disturbed by it. It was only that other people would be incapable of understanding the way in which objective reality did not account for its essential truth.

I said through my huddling and hiding that I was nothing, and I was happy to be nothing if nothing was what pleased him best. If nothing was the least trouble, then I would be it, and gladly. I would be completely blank and still if that was what worked, or as loud as he needed me to be to take up his silences. I would be energetic and lively if he

I really was happy when I seemed happy. I am incapable of lying about my feelings, it’s only that the feelings have no coherence, are not continuous from one hour to the next.

Being in love was like that to me, a shield, a higher purpose, a promise to something outside of yourself.

a way that made me feel small and contained and happy.