After all, I wasn’t crippled in any way, I just studied too hard, I didn’t know when to stop.

All I want is blackness. Blackness and silence.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig...

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one...

I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.

I Am VerticalBut I would rather be horizontal.I am not a tree with my root in the soilSucking up minerals and motherly loveSo that each March I may gleam into leaf,Nor am I the beauty...

This boy – his name was Eric – said he thought it disgusting the way all the girls at my college stood around on the porches under the porch lights and in the bushes in...

I knew I should be grateful to Mrs Guinea, only I couldn’t feel a thing. If Mrs Guinea had given me a ticket to Europe, or a round-the-world cruise, it wouldn’t have made one scrap...

I buried my head under the darkness of the pillow and pretended it was night. I couldn’t see the point of getting up. I had nothing to look forward to.

Only I wasn’t steering anything, not even myself.