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Left alone in the dark, this secret festers, until everything around it is infected with its rot and it has become impossible to ignore, forcing us to witness the most depraved sides of humanity.
“Nothing,” she told me, “appeals more to a man than a young girl who’s not been had yet, apart from a girl who’s not been had yet and gives the impression she’ll be had by him.” She made me think of myself as a piece of fruit and the act of sex like plucking a plum with a rough hand, bruising the flesh.
Some things are so horrible that the only sane response is a bit of madness.
Spirits like her are not drawn to the happy and carefree; they want salt, be it blood or be it tears.
It’s a dangerous thing, to try and give someone everything. One day, you might find you’ve given away things you should’ve kept. Some parts of us must remain inviolate if we are to survive as a person.”
The unknown is a large thing to fear, bigger than what the mind may hold, especially that of a child as young as yourself.
To speak of evil is to invite it in.
Arrogance is a greater threat to justice than evil and ineptitude.
“Happy. Such a funny little word, don’t you think? Perhaps not so hard a state to achieve, but nearly impossible to maintain, and different for everyone.
There are things a girl with a face and skin like yours can never understand about a girl with a face and skin like mine. Know, yes, but not understand.”
I had the ridiculous urge to cry. But crying had never been of use to me when I had lived with Mama, and I did not think it’d be of use to me now.
He gave me more pills, pills that dulled everything until I felt nothing. It’s easy, pretending to be a perfect wife when you feel only a little more than, say, a tomato.”
“I had done everything for him. I’d denied myself, torn myself apart, and given parts of me away I should have kept, and for what? For love? If that was love, it came at much too steep a price. I couldn’t pay it anymore.
And some things one just doesn’t talk about, not with anyone. Some things are so shameful, so painful, that we lock them away deep inside us and pretend they don’t exist.
one can only appeal to another person’s sense of pity if they have one.”
“Why can’t it simply be real, and not just to me? Just because you can’t explain how it could be real doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
