The only sure camouflage was unpredictability. - Margaret Atwood

This has been her problem all her life: picturing other people's responses. She's too good at it. She can picture the response of anyone — other people's reactions, their emotions, their criticisms, their demands — but somehow they don't reciprocate. Maybe they can't. Maybe they lack the gift, if it is one.

That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first in your head, and then you make it real.

When I was younger I used to think that if I could hug myself tight enough I could make myself smaller, because there was never enough room for me, at home or anywhere, but if I was smaller then I would fit in.