We All Need Mantras, I Guess -

No Wonder The Regulators Decided On Segregation Of Boys And Girls: Otherwise, It Would Have Been A Nightmare, This Feeling Angry And Self-conscious And Confused And Annoyed All The Time.

You See, We Didn't Know.

There's Always Some Relief In Giving Up.

Chance. Stupid, Dumb, Blind Chance. Just A Part Of The Strange Mechanism Of The World, With Its Fits And Coughs And Starts And Random Collisions.

That Was What Her Parents Did Not Understand—and Had Never Understood—about Stories. Liza Told Herself Storied As Though She Was Weaving And Knotting An Endless Rope. Then, No Matter How Dark Or Terrible The Pit She Found Herself In, She Could Pull Herself Out, Inch By Inch And Hand Over Hand, On The Long Rope Of Stories.