A mother is always a mother, since a mother is a biological fact, whilst a father is a movable feast.

Why do you do up your hair in those tortured plaits, now, Melanie? Why? Because, she said. You know that's no answer. You're spoiling your pretty looks, pet. Come here. She did not move. He ground out his cigarette on the window-ledge and laughed. Come here, he said again, softly. So she went.

In a world where women are commodities, a woman who refuses to sell herself will have the thing she refuses to sell taken away from her by force

How far does a pretence of feeling, maintained with absolute conviction, become authentic?

Midnight, and the clock strikes. It is Christmas Day, the werewolves birthday, the door of the solstice still wide enough open to let them all slink through.

Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual.

In a secular age, an authentic miracle must purport to be a hoax, in order to gain credit in the world.