Who are you? the band sang. I tried to remember but I really couldn't say.

She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.

The phoenix must burn to emerge.

Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.

You were my home, Mother. I had no home but you

Whenever she turned her steep focus to me, I felt the warmth that flowers must feel when they bloom through the snow, under the first concentrated rays of the sun.

I hated labels anyway. People didn't fit in slots--prostitute, housewife, saint--like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water.

I couldn't imagine owning beauty like my mothers. I wouldn't dare.

Oleander time, she said. Lovers who kill each other now will blame it on the wind.

Her hatred glittered irresistibly. I could see it, the jewel, it was sapphire, it was the cold lakes of Norway.

Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them.

God hides treasure in dirt, so that only those humble enough to dig through it find it.

Love? ... It's at the heart of every story.

I found Spotted Tail's lodge. He invited me to enter.

Your troubles will always bve my troubles,so long as were married.

And when I say it, they get alarmed... 'Cause I'm louder than a bomb.

Once causes are determined, then there is talk of "social injustice" and the privileged begin to resist.

I'm supposed to be taking time off. But I'm still writing and I have this Gap advert lined up.

Things not worth doing are not worth doing well.

Why is it you always meet people when you look your worst?

There are people who are waiting for me. I can only continue living when I stand onstage.