excerpts from "Till the Fat Lady Sings"

"She needed touching but was too fearful of men to feel comfortable as an agent of desire. She was waiting for a lover to recognize her, to transform her into an object of desire. Sometimes it is the flesh that is willing and the spirit that is weak."

"There are no maps to chart the vast expanse between the way people behave and what they feel. The only clues we have are the discrepancies of our own experience. How often have you smiled and seemed happily content but really been a roiling mass of insecurity? How many times have you said, "I loveyou" and felt only the dull echo of doubt as consequence?"

"Pain is like salt, giving love its savor, preserving it when it would otherwise prove perishable, feeding hunger and creating thirst."

Alisa Kwitney