Animals don’t think in terms of victims and villains, or good and bad, or evil, or shame.

Do it to me.′ ‘What?’ we asked. ‘Make me born.

The son will not speak to her. She watches him, and she wants to tell him that he can put all his hate on her; she will take it all, if that’s what he needs her to do. Listen, really listen, and that’s what she is saying in her silence. The boy can’t help but hear.

I don’t think that any family has a function. I just think that a family is. It just exists.

What happens when you die?” I asked. “Nothing happens.” he said. “Nothing happens forever.

Hours passed. A man came by twice and poked his head into my theater and looked at me questioningly. The third time, he came in and sat next to me and asked, “How many times you plan on watching this crap?” I shrugged my shoulders. He was wearing corduroy pants, and I would have liked to drag my fingernail across his thigh. “You hiding?” “I’m just sitting here,” I said. “Yeah, never mind,” he said. “I guess you’re a bit young for that. What about your folks?

I totally bristle against words like “dysfunction” or “abuse.”

When we were three together, we stuck our fingers into each other’s eyes and pulled chairs out from underneath.

As you become an adult, shame gets introduced and reintroduced constantly to you. So where something that, to a child, just is what it is – you know, your father’s violent but he loves you and that’s just the way it is – later on you realize that this is like different, shameful, blah blah blah.

Shame doesn’t exist in the animal kingdom. It’s a human conception.