Life can only be kept by giving it away. But then it will bloom.

That sinuous southern life, that oblique and slow and complicated old beauty, that warm thick air and blood warm sea, that place of mists and languor and fragrant richness.

I have a theory that Southern madhouses are full of gifted women who were stifled.

I felt tears sting into my eyes, and took a deep swallow of the first champagne I had ever tasted, remembering that I had read somewhere that the monk who invented it said, on first tasting it, 'It is like drinking stars'.

Laughter nibbled at my lips like tiny fish in warm water.

I don't know if I would do sequels. I almost feel like when I'm done with them, they're going to have to find their own way.

Somebody said writing is easy, you just sit down at your typewriter and open a vein. It depends on the book. Some, I have to do quite a lot of research, which I like. Others are much closer to me.