It is, perhaps, a better thing to be valued only as an object of passion than never to be valued at all.

Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation.

His wedding gift, clasped round my throat. A choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat.

It shone on everyone, whether they had a contract or not. The most democratic thing I'd ever seen, that California sunshine.

I think it's one of the scars in our culture that we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We align ourselves with the angels instead of the higher primates.

Spindly branches of buttercups were secreted among gleaming stems still moist at the roots from last night's rain that had washedand refreshed the entire wood, had dowered it in poignant transparency, the unique, inconsolable quality of rainy countries, as if all was glimpsed through tears.

If Miss means respectably unmarried, and Mrs. respectably married, then Ms. means nudge, nudge, wink, wink.