“There was something wrong with her. She did not know what it was but there was something wrong with her. A hunger, a restlessness. An incomplete knowledge of herself. The sense of something farther away, beyond her reach.”

“But when he looked at her—and she looked at him—they both knew that there was something worse than kissing the wrong person. It was wanting to.”

“She was unique: there was something abnormal about her, and it was that abnormal something that made her magnetic.”

“There's something about her," Caire said in a low voice. "She cares for everyone about her, yet neglects herself. I want to be the one who cares for her.”

“If any female feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.”

“She was already putting her distance between herself and this woman she would kill. She was becoming an object, something she was going to do something unpleasant to; not a person with a right to live.”

“She had waited all her life for something, and it had killed her when it found her.”

“She encouraged herself to see her very small presence in the world as a good thing, a power, something that a hero might possess.”

“Letterman: "Oh, stop it! Will you stop? Ladies and gentlemen, turn down your volume. Turn down the volume immediately! She can't be stopped! There's something wrong with her!"”

“Her eyes burned, her muscles ached, but in some strange and secret place, she was happy to finally be doing something that wasn't just protecting herself, but protecting other people, too.”