The life I led now I’d made so I would never be her again. I’d never wanted to be reminded of her and her struggles again. And yet I knew I had alway… - Alexander Chee

Poison, in my experience, is always hidden; it seems to me we never know its color.

You are never lost in sorrow, it seems to me, ever. You do know the way. In fact, you don't think there's any other. Sorrow seemed to me to be more like a road would through life, through the days of your life, like the old Roman ruins near the Tuileries or the rue d'Enfer — underneath this life, but never really apart from it.

I was by now used to people being surprised by me and my background, and their surprise offended me. I was always having to be what I was looking for in the world, wishing the person I would become already existed — some other I before me. I was forever finding even the tiniest way to identify with someone to escape how empty the world seemed to be of what I was.