Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful, we wish our clothes could glisten and ripple a… - Susanna Kaysen

A representative conversation with Dr. Wick: “Good morning. It has been decided that you were compulsively promiscuous. Would you like to tell me about that?” “No.” This is the best of several bad responses, I’ve decided. “For instance, the attachment to your high school English teacher.” Dr. Wick always uses words like attachment. “Uh?” “Would you like to tell me about that?” “Um. Well. He drove me to New York.” That was when I realized he was interested. He brought along a wonderful vegetarian lunch for me. “But that wasn’t when it was.” “What? When what was?” “When we fucked.” (Flush.) “Go on.” “We went to the Frick. I’d never been there. There was this Vermeer, see, this amazing painting of a girl having a music lesson—I just couldn’t believe how amazing it was—” “So when did you—ah—when was it?” Doesn’t she want to hear about the Vermeer? That’s what I remember. “What?” “The—ah—attachment. How did it start?” “Oh, later, back home.” Suddenly I know what she wants. “I was at his house. We had poetry meetings at his house. And everybody had left, so we were just sitting there on the sofa alone. And he said, ‘Do you want to fuck?’ ” (Flush.) “He used that word?” “Yup.” He didn’t. He kissed me. And he’d kissed me in New York too. But why should I disappoint her? This was called therapy.

As far as I could see, life demanded skills I didn’t have.

When women are angry at men, they call them heartless. When men are angry at women, they call them crazy.