Each artist or writer who works in Venice comes to believe that the city yields its most special secret to him or her alone.

the body is wiser than its inhabitants. the body is the soul. the body is god’s messenger.

In any triangle, who is the betrayer, who the unseen rival, and who the humiliated lover? Oneself, oneself, and no one but oneself!

I never became a writer for the money. I am a poet first. Even getting published is a miracle for poets.

I have ne'er been in a chamber with a lawyer when I did not wish either to scream with desperation or else fall into the deepest of sleeps, e'en when the matter concern'd my own future most profoundly.

If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it's because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that's the most revolutionary insight of all.

I mostly hate organized religion, which I think is a force for the oppression of women and creates warfare.