“Her face kept changing and that bothered me as well. Why were human beings so unstable? The door and the curtains and the supply cabinet didn't continually change their appearance.”

“On the other hand as I have told you, your past continually changes. It does not appear to change for you, for you change with it.”

“I loved him so much. It didn't change all the reasons we couldn't be together, but it kept me returning to his body, kept my skin seeking his skin over and over again in the sad dance we did.”

“People didn't change. they liked what they liked even if they didn't understand why.”

“And she was good to me: strong, fun, and fiercely loyal. And if I didn't have many other friends because of her-most girls were intimidated by her looks, or thought she was too pushy, or just flat-out feared for their boyfriends-it never bothered me. I never missed having a wide, thick circle of girlfriends: Rina was more than enough. We were comfortable with each other's flaws and weaknesses, so we stuck together and kept to ourselves.”

“Television is like the invention of indoor plumbing. It didn't change people’s habits. It just kept them inside the house.”

“Unstable condition
A symptom of life
In mental and environmental change
Atmospheric disturbance
The feverish flux
Of human interface and interchange
-- Vital Signs (1981)”

“Oh, I'm burning! I wish I were out of doors. I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free, and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed?”

“As I confronted her, the changes grew less apparent to me, her identity stronger. She was there, in the full vigour of her personality, battered but not diminished, looking at me, speaking to me in the husky, breathy voice I remembered so well.”

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change. The sun might shine, or the clouds might lour: but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before.”