I used to have a cat, an old fighting tom, who would jump through the open window by my bed in the middle of the night and land on my chest. I'd half-awaken. He'd stick his skull under my nose and purr, stinking of urine and blood. Some nights he kneaded my bare chest with his front paws, powerfully, arching his back, as if sharpening his claws, or pummeling a mother for milk. And some mornings I'd wake in daylight to find my body covered with paw prints in blood; I looked as though I'd been painted with roses.

No child on earth was ever meant to be ordinary, and you can see it in them, and they know it, too, but then the times get to them, and the wear out their brains learning what folks expect, and spend their strength trying to rise over those same folks.

The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out.

A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order - willed, faked, and so brought into being.

Nothing moves a woman so deeply as the boyhood of the man she loves.

Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world.

Almost all of my many passionate interests, and my many changes of mind, came through books. Books prompted the many vows I made to myself.