"I long for someone to 'be with me at night when I wake up in shuddering horror and fear of the cement tunnels leading down to the shock room…'"

"Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. From the moment I was conceived I was doomed to sprout breasts and ovaries rather than penis and scrotum; to have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling…"

"I felt that I had been an idiot all my life, and that I was about to become an even bigger idiot."

"I want to be a woman who is a wife and mother, but also a famous writer. I want to have a life of my own, and not just be an appendage to a man."

"I am a walking, talking, breathing question mark."