"This is a story of two battles, a battle to keep out 'the world' and a battle to join it" (Author's Note, pg. xix.)

"I thought I felt a whisper through my soul, everything is nothing, and nothing is everything. Death in life and life in death of falsity" (pg. 5.)

"My mother used to say: 'If you really want to hurt someone, be nice to them' Perhaps she had learned that lesson from watching the way it often affected me" (pg. 34.)

"It was as though awareness were a puppet, the strings of which were set firmly in the hands of emotional stress" (pg. 46.)

"I don't think I was made, but I was certainly very distant and too far away to be reached" (pg. 65.)

"The bare floor, wall-to-wall mirrors, the barred windows, and the hoard of untouched, unwanted dolls spoke of who I was. My mother stood there among...