The old gods will bring about vengeance not so much because they exist but because I once honored them.

My life's been too much of a self-created vocation. And there are times when I think I've done everything in the name of defiance.

I'm usually working on my own mythology, my own realm of created characters. Stories in mythology inspire me, though I may not be conscious of it.

And books, they offer one hope -- that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved.

You look good to me, you damnable little devil, good to embrace and good to love.

So we reach into the raging chaos, and we cling to it, and we tell ourselves it has meaning, and that the world is good, and we are not evil, and we will all go home in the end.

All my life,I've been afraid of things, as a child and a woman must be. I lied about it naturally. I fancied myself a witch and walked in dark streets to punish myself for my doubts. But I knew what it meant to be afraid.