It Seemed A Lifetime Ago I'd Lain

What Is Beauty? Beauty Is No More Than A Trick; A Delusion; The Influence Of Excited Particles And Electrons Colliding In Your Eyes, Jostling In Your Brain Like A Bunch Of Overeager School Children, About To Be Released On Break. Will You Let Yourself Be Deluded? Will You Let Yourself Be Decieved? -"on Beauty And Falsehood," The New Philosophy, By Ellen Dorpshire

For The First Time In My Life I Actually Feel Sorry For Carol. I'm Only Seventeen Years Old, And I Already Know Something She Doesn't Know: I Know That Life Isn't Life If You Just Float Through It. I Know That The Whole Point- The Only Point- Is To Find Things That Matter, And Hold On To Them, And Fight For Them, And Refuse To Let Them Go.

This Is The World We Live In, A World Of Safety And Happiness And Order, A World Without Love. A World Where Children Crack Their Heads On Stone Fireplaces And Nearly Gnaw Off Their Tongues And The Parents Are Concerned. Not Heartbroken, Frantic, Desperate. Concerned, As They Are When You Fail Mathematics, As They Are When They Are Late To Pay Their Taxes.

Additionally, Liesl And Po Is The Embodiment Of What Writing Has Always Been For Me At Its Purest And Most Basic--not A Paycheck, Certainly; Not An Idea, Even; And Not An Escape. Actually, It Is The Opposite Of An Escape; It Is A Way Back In, A Way To Enter And Make Sense Of A World That Occasionally Seems Harsh And Terrible And Mystifying. (from The "author's Note" At The End).

It's The Time Of The Night I Like Best, When Most People Are Asleep And It Feels Like The World Belongs Completely To My Friends And Me, As Though Nothing Exists Apart From Out Little Circle: Everywhere Else Is Darkness And Quiet.