In this book, much is metaphorical, not as it seems. It’s written for writing’s sake, as if I were to say, “Let me tell you I’m dying.” Well of course I am. So are you.

— Chila Woychik

I read a book, am vortexes in with no escape; my face contorts, eyelids frost, breath comes short, body longs, heart stop-starts. Who’s to say too much won’t kill me? Who’s to say I care?

— Chila Woychik

I see an actress smoking a cigarette in an old Fred McMurray movie. She’s clever and beautiful and manipulative. I feel envy. I suddenly wish I smoked cigarettes and was as clever and beautiful and manipulative as she. Furthermore, I want to be that way at the restaurants I visit, as I’m walking to my car, with certain friends who might understand. The actress has played her part well; she’s made me want to emulate her base desires if only for a while. Does that make me impressionable, a fool, or someone who will recognize the deepest secrets of her heart? I fight hard to stay young—to keep the lines from further etching my face and hands and breasts, presumably to trick the world into believing I am young. I’m an actress playing a part. Furthermore, I’m afraid to tell the truth. Furthermore, I fear losing those younger or becoming those older. In the presence of youth, a sort of unseen age-osmosis occurs within me. The years drop away, and I don’t want to leave. It’s utterly selfish but I don’t care. After all, I’m no older than they—I’ve just been so longer. I was nineteen only yesterday and they don’t retire nineteen-year-old actresses.

— Chila Woychik

I speak, I speak, and truth at that. Writers are a curious breed: brooding, fickle, alternately loving and hating their work—and each other. You’re my friend? Don’t pick up that pen!

— Chila Woychik

I suck the words word-dry to me, assimilated orderly at breakage speed still hard and harder softer then line-lined book-dry‘til not a dropoff water-blood from oak and eland authored Denis left to whisper“Read…

— Chila Woychik

I think that’s why I write—the not knowing and the blasted good feeling I get out of it all.

— Chila Woychik

I’ve had a fountain pen surgically implanted in my left index finger to save trouble. My body is tattooed with line upon line of truth, fiction, and a not-always-pleasing mix of the two.

— Chila Woychik

I’ve never had a rat, never chased one. I chase my own tail and that’s enough. Furthermore, I must now make plans for the day I catch it.

— Chila Woychik

I was a late bloomer. I was still naïve about what 16-year-olds today have known for years. Furthermore, I remember sitting up and taking notice—of the world, my body, others—in a way never before experienced. Furthermore, I noticed boys, or rather they noticed me, at 16.

— Chila Woychik

Let’s face it: suffering discredits goodness. I’m agnostic in practice though faith-based in theory. I used to pray but now know he’ll do what he darn well pleases when he darn well pleases. Will he listen? Maybe. We have a book that says so, but how much happens beyond that book, I can’t say. That’s agnosticism in its bleakest and most honest form. Don’t judge me, yet believe me when I tell you that years of abuse tend to wring out every ounce of one’s ability to understand and adhere to faith in standard form.

— Chila Woychik