“I wasn't just the madwoman in the attic--I was the attic itself. The past was all over me, all under me, all inside me.”

“Secretly, in studies and attics and schoolrooms all over America, people must be writing.”

“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”

“All my parents gave me was their fumbly hands: I got their hands inside me to this day.”

“I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young. They’re still princesses.”

“I began to feel that all the people I'd ever known who had died or left me had not in fact gone away, but continued to live on inside me just as this man's wife lived on inside him.”

“It was getting hard to keep all the things I didn't know inside me.”

“I foretell the future. I predict the past. I don't need a crystal ball; a football, a tennis ball, a moth ball, any old ball will do. When the power is upon me, there is no holding me back, I just let loose and prophesy all over the place.”

“It is seasoned throughout with Attic salt.”

“Attic tragedies of stateliest and most regal argument.”