"As a child I read Jane Eyre, and again later, as a university student. It is, above all, a novel about submission. Confinement and submission—zones of submission. All spaces in the novel are enclosures of female submission...each a zone of submission and indoctrination to familial tyranny, institutional and religious doctrine, and white masculinity. The major ethical event is how Jane will resist or inhabit these zones of submission: the love plot is what follows."
"The inexchangeable pleasure of her conversation. Just to walk the streets saying things, anything, just the act itself, walking together at the same speed, and talking, purely to amuse and please one another, to make each other stupidly laugh, for no further accomplishment, no higher purpose, to let their words rise and disperse forever in the damp brackish air."
"Leslie and I got past compatibility, to that place where you surprise yourself with how badly you want to stay in that liminal pocket together, how desperate and unattractive you're willing to be to experience uncompromised joy."
"A lot of writing consists of waiting around for the aquarium to settle so you can see the fish. Walking around muttering seems to hasten the process. Taking public transportation nowhere helps. Looking out the bus window helps your mind move forward. Don't listen to anything but natural sound. Don't look at anything you have to turn on. This is about the pleasure of silence."
