“an ugliness unfurled in the moonlight and soft shadow and suffused the whole world. if i were an amoeba, he thought, with an infinitesimal body, i could defeat ugliness. a man isn’t tiny or giant enough to defeat anything.”

“i was a flower petal about to fall. i trembled and quivered at the slightest breeze; at the slightest insult, i writhed about and considered dying.”