“...Ursula begins penciling in her own face, emphasizing and even exaggerating those features of which she was ashamed as a teenager and of which she now makes a point of being proud: the ridge on which her eyebrows are set, her muscular jawline, the elongated slope between her nose and her upper lip. It's important to have these features, she thinks, for the same reason it's important to live in a cramped apartment with a lumpy futon. With a face like this, in a place like that, she's never in danger of feeling glamorous. She can sit on a pile of moldy pillows on the floor of her windowless living room, so dark the ceiling lamp needs to be on in the middle of the day, and she can pull up the hem of her nightshirt, as she did this afternoon, and look down at her thighs and not feel sexy, not feel attractive at all, feel quite unattractive, in fact, whereas if she were on a white couch in a spacious room with oversized windows and sunlight warming her thighs, who knows? She might look at those legs and think of those legs' being looked at and think of herself as being sexy and even glamorous, too. Because glamour is a matter of context. And white, empty space, as she learned from her pile of out-of-date library books, is the number-one glamour cue in advertisements. Anything placed on a white, empty background is instantly glamorized, be it a perfume bottle, a watch, a hair-care product, an upscale toothpaste, or a woman's body. This was what Ivy wanted, white space, nothing but white and space. Ursula marveled at all that white space when she went to break the lease on her sister's apartment, too white and spacious for Ursula herself to afford. A white couch, a bed with white sheets, a small white table and white chairs, symmetrically placed amid four white walls: Ivy aspired to the absolute zero of glamour. Her ideal was to have no context at all, only weightlessly to crowd-surf on an endless sea of strangers who would hold, fondle, and pass along every facet of her glamorous existence. A kind of utterly passive immortality.”

The Savage Girl, Alex Shaker

“This above all; to thine own self be true.”

Hamlet, William Shakespeare

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”

Hamlet, William Shakespeare

“I wake up in the morning and the sun is shining,
But I barely have the strength to close the curtain
Stop the sun from hurting my black hole
Everything's an effort when you doubt the purpose of your soul.”

Sleep Forever, Bree Sharp

“Help, I have done it again
I have been here many times before
Hurt myself again today
And the worst part is
There's no-one else to blame.”

Breathe Me, Sia Recommended by Shay.

“Ouch I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
I've lost myself again and I feel unsafe .”

Breathe Me, Sia Recommended by Shay.

“I've built walls
A fortress deep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need for friendship
Friendship causes pain
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.

I am a rock
I am an island.”

I Am A Rock, Simon and Garfunkel

“I've got nothing to do today but smile...
Half of the time we're gone but we don't know where.”

The Only Living Boy In New York, Simon and Garfunkel

“Some of us prefer illusion to despair.”

The Simpsons [television show] Recommended by Carla.

“When there's nobody left in your heart, left in your head
When the whole world has packed up in shadows and left you for dead
When you can't fake a smile and you just can't get out of your bed.”

Life In Disguise, The Slip

“It's 2:45 in the morning
And I'm putting myself on warning
For waking up in an unknown place
With a recollection you've half erased
Looking for somebody's arms to
Wave away past harms.”

2:45 AM, Elliott Smith

“Time to kill wrote a living will and gave it to the man in the moon
But I'm on a get well soon
This happy face is watching me die
Elevate me to another world
All that I can do in my own
Is leave well enough alone.”

A Living Will, Elliott Smith

“Drink up baby, stay up all night
With the things you could do, you won't but you might
The potential you'll be that you'll never see
The promises you'll only make
People you've been before that you don't want around anymore
That push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still.”

Between The Bars, Elliott Smith

“They're waking you up to close the bar
The street's wet you can tell by the sound of the cars
The bartender's singing Clementine
While he's turning around the open sign
Dreadful sorry Clementine
Though you're still her man
It seems a long time gone
Maybe the whole thing's wrong
What if she thinks so but just didn't say so?
You drank yourself into slo-mo
Made an angel in the snow
Anything to pass the time
And keep that song out of yr mind
Oh my darling
Oh my darling
Oh my darling Clementine
Dreadful sorry Clementine.”

Clementine, Elliott Smith

“The litebrite's now black and white
Cause you took apart a picture that wasn't right
Pitch burning on a shining sheet
The only maker that you'd want to meet
The dying man in a living room
Who's shadow paces the floor
Who'll take you out in the open door
This is not my life
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
It's not what I'm like
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
Who couldn't get things right
Fond farewell to a friend
He said really I just wanna dance
Good and evil matched perfect it's a great romance
I can deal with some physic pain
If it'll slow down my higher brain
Veins full of disappearing ink
Vomiting in the kitchen sink
Disconnecting from the missing link
This is not my life
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
It's not what I'm like
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
Who couldn't get things right
Fond farewell to a friend
I see you're leaving me and taking up with the enemy
The cold comfort of the in between
A little less than a human being
A little less than a happy high
A little less than a suicide
The only things that you really tried
This is not my life
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
It's not what I'm like
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
Who couldn't get things right
Fond farewell to a friend
This is not my life
It's just a fond farewell to a friend ”

Fond Farewell, Elliott Smith

“i'll tell you why i don't
want to know where you are
i got a joke i been dying to tell you
a silent kid is looking down the barrel
to make the noise that i kept so quiet
i kept it from you, pitseleh

i'm not what's missing from your life now
i could never be the puzzle pieces
they say that god makes problems
just to see what you can stand
before you do as the devil pleases
and give up the thing you love
but no one deserves it

the first time i saw you
i knew it would never last
i'm not half what i wish i was
i'm so angry, i don't think it'll ever pass
and i was bad news for you, just because
i never meant to hurt you.”

Pitseleh, Elliott Smith

“You're everybody's second home
Always trying to get me alone
An easy way to lose it all
Always there when all else fails
Over by the west side rails

But I don't really need that now
I never really did anyhow
I only really needed alcohol
Something that'll treat me okay
And wouldn't say the things you'd say

Please turn out the light
I get a sick confusion headache trying to figure out who's right

Dreaming on the silver strand
Waking up to plainclothes man
You little bastard, little boy in blue
Someone's gonna get to you
And fuck up everything you do

He's so unhappy inside
He's serious with everyone
And he thinks he'll win you with his angry kiss
Acting like he has no needs
Wanting you to watch him bleed

Made for each other bet you pay me any mind
Just goes to show my continual decline
They say that I'll recover my love of her once in a while
But I don't know
I don't think so...

There's something that I'll tell you now
Now that no one else is around
The sort of lesson that I learned from you
Not quite the way you planned
But I know you'll understand

Someone takes a photograph
A picture while their sweetheart laughs
A perfect moment in a flash of light
Counting back from 3 to 1
That's exactly what you've done

And I'm so unsurprised
I remember, I remember why I dream in black & white

Goes to show my continual decline
They say that I'll recover my love of her once in a while
But I don't know
I don't think so
I don't think so...”

Plainclothes Man, Elliott Smith

“It's a picture perfect evening and I'm staring down the sun
Fully loaded deaf and dumb and done
Waiting for sedation to disconnect my head
Or any situation where I'm better off then dead.”

Sweet Adeline, Elliott Smith

“one day i got sick
she played me a nasty old trick
said i need cigarettes
walked round the block
caught a cab
stayed gone for too long
and my love had gotten so strong
just to try being back on my own
i had to go to rehab
all i need is a safe place to bleed
is this where it's at
having no chance
steps in a dance
your whole life's been in combat
now i'm the king of the ward
'cos i'm good and i swallow my sword
and puke it out
for the doctors to write a new prescription
tranquil as a dove
people that have lost their true love
all seem to fit the same description
i feel cold, useless and old
I wish i was no one
take me home my love.”

True Love, Elliott Smith

“I go into record shops a lot - any record shop, anywhere, sometimes to buy records, sometimes just to browse, but frequently to indulge in other, less readily comprehensible activities, which have nothing to do with buying, or seeking things to buy, at all.

Very often I go into a record shop and look at records I already own. I actively seek out in the browser bins copies of albums which I already have and which I have no intention of buying again, and look at them. Normally I won't trouble to remove them from the rack or bin; I'll just flick to where they sit, open up a little viewing space and then pause, not really to think or anything, but as if seeking some kind of pointless confirmation: 'Yep, here's Scritti Politti's Cupid and Psyche 85. In front of the board saying Scritti Politti. In the S section.'

I don't find this behaviour easy to explain, though clearly there is wishfulness involved, that if only you didn't already have this record you would be able to buy it. Chiefly, though, I suspect it is descended from a piece of primary-school playground business wherein someone would skim through their bubblegum cards/football stickers or similar collectables while someone else stood at their shoulder announcing the relation of this collection to their own: 'Goddit. Goddit. Goddit. Haven't goddit. Goddit', etc. But in the playground, this performance at least served a practical purpose, as a prelude to swapping or some other form of trading, whereas any pop-fuelled adult version feels much more like the conduct of an addict, standing there in isolation at the browsers, reciting to himself a numb mantra: 'Goddit. Goddit. Goddit...'”

Lost In Music, Giles Smith

“Trying to read her palm with a clenched fist
Calling out for whatever's in store
Asking: 'God, did the Devil put you up to this?
Whatever it is, I can't take it any more.'”

This Ship, Martina Sorbara Recommended by Shay.

“I felt a kind of numbness, an enervation, but more particularly an odd fragility--as if my body had actually become frail, hypersensitive and somehow disjointed and clumsy, lacking normal coordination. And soon I was in the throes of a pervasive hypochondria. ”

Darkness Visible, William Styron Recommended by Shay.

“We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love one another.”

Thoughts On Various Subjects, Jonathan Swift

“Sweet Ma tried to shape my mind, pounding it like dumpling dough. And the more she tried, the more I became like my mother, so she said. I was greedy, she warned, and could not fill my heart with enough pleasure, my stomach with enough contentment, my body with enough sleep. I was like a rice basket with a rat hole at the bottom, and thus could not be satisfied and overflow, nor could I be filled. I would never know the full depth and breadth of love, beauty, or happiness. She said it like a curse.

Because of her criticism, I acted as if I were even more deficient in feeling, particularly toward her. I found that a blank face and a bland heart were the very things that made Sweet Ma's eyebrows bulge to bursting. My reasoning was this: How could I be wounded when I didn't care? In time, I felt I was growing stronger and stronger. My legs no longer buckled, and I learned to hide from pain. I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I had placed them.”

Saving Fish From Drowning, Amy Tan

“I almost aborted (my daughter), though. When I found out I was pregnant, I was furious. ...referred to (it) as my 'growing resentment' and I dragged M. down to the clinic so he would have to suffer through his too.”

The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan