I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.

Isn't hate merely the result of wounded love?

My favorite anything is always relative to the context of present time, place and mood. When I finish a book and want to immediately find another by the same author and no other, that author is elevated to my favorite.

I have survivor skills. Some of that is superficial - what I present to people outwardly - but what makes people resilient is the ability to find humour and irony in situations that would otherwise overpower you.

You should think about your character. Know where you are changing, how you will be changed, what cannot be changed back again.

For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.

Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.