One can't build little white picket fences to keep nightmares out.

I am so imperfect, can you love me when really my soul is deformed? Will you love me anyhow?

women are born twice.

It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.

Yes I try to kill myself in small amounts, an innocuous occupation. Actually I'm hung up on it.

The summer has seized you, as when, last month in Amalfi, I saw lemons as large as your desk-side globe-that miniature map of the world-and I could mention, too, the market stalls of mushrooms and garlic bugs all engorged. Or I even think of the orchard next door, where the berries are done and the apples are beginning to swell. And once, with our first backyard,I remember I planted an acre of yellow beans we couldn't eat.

I wonder if the artist ever lives his life--he is so busy recreating it.