[Kurt Cobain] had a lot of German in him. Some Irish. But no Jew. I think that if he had had a little Jew he would have [expletive] stuck it out.

To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.

I am scared of the photo studio. I am scared of the telephone. Scared of anything outside our apartment. Scared of the people in their big fur hats. Scared of the snow. Scared of the cold. Scared of the heat. Scared of the ceiling fan at which I would point one tragic finger and start weeping. Scared of any height higher than my sickbed. Scared of Uncle Electric Current. "Why was I so scared of everything?" I ask my mother nearly forty years later.

"Because you were born a Jewish person," she says.

The bittersweetness of uncertainty: To win or to lose.

The sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea.

I think being a woman is like being Irish... Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the time.