Steven Levenkron

Kessa ran her fingers over her stomach. Flat. But was it flat enough? Not quite. She still had some way to go.…

— Steven Levenkron

The nerves of the skin send pain signals to the brain to warn us of the danger from and impending injury. In…

— Steven Levenkron

Repetition brings familiarity, and familiarity is the opposite of the unknown.

— Steven Levenkron

Self-mutilation is a frightening barrier that keeps us from seeing a person who is lost, in pain, and in desperate need of…

— Steven Levenkron

“[. . .] and in addition to the feeling of being full there was another more terrifying one, as if a hundred…

— Steven Levenkron

“This morning Kessa was in control again. She lifted her left breast with her right hand and pinched it hard. The girl…

— Steven Levenkron

She lay on her back and walked her fingers down her ribs, skipped them over her abdomen, and landed on her pelvic…

— Steven Levenkron

She'd lost two more pounds. A picture of the models she'd cut out of the magazine flashed through Kessa's mind. And the…

— Steven Levenkron

“Well, Kessa, I am glad to see that you're taking your body seriously. I shudder when I see the girls leaving class…

— Steven Levenkron

She ran her hands over her body as if to bid it good-bye. The hipbones rising from a shrunken stomach were razor-sharp.…

— Steven Levenkron

“Fat bitch," Kessa murmured as the door scraped closed behind Mrs. Stone. "She meant well, Francesca. And you see, everyone thinks you're…

— Steven Levenkron

Soon I'll be thinner than all of you, she swore to herself. And then I'll be the winner. The thinner is the…

— Steven Levenkron

How silly people were to eat. They thought they needed food for energy, but they didn't. Energy came from will, from self-control.

— Steven Levenkron

Kessa began to cut her meat into tiny pieces. As a whole it was unmanageable, frightening; but divided and arranged, the meat…

— Steven Levenkron

“She used to look forward to changing in the locker room when other girls stole shocked glances at her emaciated body last…

— Steven Levenkron

She began to be reassured by these pains, tangible symbols of her success in becoming thinner than anyone else. Her only identity…

— Steven Levenkron

From the newsstands a dozen models smiled up at her from a dozen magazine covers, smiled in thin-faced, high-cheekboned agreement to Kessa's…

— Steven Levenkron