I am endowed by shame's vast memory, more detailed and implacable than any other, a gift unique to shame. - Annie Ernaux

Maybe the true purpose of my life is for my body, my sensations and my thoughts to become writing, in other words, something intelligible and universal, causing my existence to merge into the lives and heads of other people.

I am beginning to reach the age when I say hello to the old women I meet in my neighborhood, anticipating the moment in life when I shall be one of them. When I was twenty I didn't notice them; they would be dead before my face had wrinkles.

I can no longer think of any way to change my life except by having a baby. I will never sink lower than that.