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

Our fingernails match our toenails, match our lipstick match our rouge...The habit of applying warpaint outlasts the battle.

The notion of a universality of human experience is a confidence trick and the notion of a universality of female experience is a clever confidence trick.

And, indeed, is there not something holy about a great kitchen?... The scoured gleam of row upon row of metal vessels dangling from hooks or reposing on their shelves till needed with the air of so many chalices waiting for the celebration of the sacrament of food. And the range like an altar, yes, before which my mother bowed in perpetual homage, a fringe of sweat upon her upper lip and the fire glowing in her cheeks.

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

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

Soon, nostalgia will be another name for Europe.