"Everything good or bad in my life had started and ended within the limits of that town. It was over now, though, and a new chapter was beginning. Nothing would ever be the same as it had been before. I just hoped this chapter wouldn't be the final one in the book."

"Within weeks of my arrival in New York, I was someone else, not because there had been a revolution in my psychological makeup or any trauma. It was simply this: people saw me in a light in which I had never been seen before."

"Now we wake up with our memoryand fix our gazes on that which was;whispering sweetness, which once coursed through us,sits silently beside us with loosened hair."

"But I think it's more that when you're young, you're invincible, you're immortal - or at least you think you are. The possibilities are limitless, you're inventing the future. Then you get older and suddenly you have a history. It's fixed. You can't change anything. I find that a bit disturbing, to be honest."