Pain is something to master, not to wallow in.

Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again.

The city was asleep on its right side and shaking with violent nightmares. Long puffs of snoring came out of the chimneys. Its feet were sticking out because the clouds did not cover it altogether. There was a hole in them and the white feathers were falling out. The city had untied all its bridges like so many buttons to feel at ease. Wherever there was a lamplight the city scratched itself until it went out.

There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don't work.

I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness.

All of my creation is an effort to weave a web of connection with the world: I am always weaving it because it was once broken.

New York seems conducted by jazz, animated by it. It is essentially a city of rhythm.