“It was from a weekly visit to the cinema that you learned how to strut, to smoke, to kiss, to fight, to grieve. … But whatever you took home from the movies was only a part of the larger experience of losing yourself in faces, in lives that were not yours. … The strongest experience…

“I have always thought: China is as far as anyone can go. Still true. When I was ten, I dug a hole in the back yard. I stopped when it got to be six feet by six feet by six feet. ‘What are you trying to do?’ said the maid. ‘Dig all the way to…

“Sometimes I had to forget that I was a woman to accomplish the best of which I was capable. Or I would lie to myself about how complicated it is to be a woman. Thus do all women, including the author of this book.”