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

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.

Weeping is terrible for the complexion, ' said Leonie, holding Shayndel close, 'but it is very good for the heart.

One day a man has a job, and life is full of possibilities. The next day the job and the car are gone, and the man cannot look his wife in the eye.

Millions and millions of exuberant monkeys are creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity.

If you want to be a writer, you don't want to live in a comfortable place.

I never set out to be a photographer.

When I was 13, when I was 14, when I was in England, yeah all I wanted to do was go and see The Who, go and see The Stones.

Never make a decision. Let someone else make it and then if it turns out to be the wrong one, you can disclaim it, and if it is the right one you can abide by it.

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

Now that I've had a book published, it is quite validating, but a bit embarrassing.

I like the effect drink has on me.