We only have babies when we're young enough not to know how grim life turns out.

It's been a long rocky life, with plenty of possibility but too much human ugliness.

I am a forgettable leaf on a tree.

Well, the family always was bright, and brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly.

And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise. They need to know when they say something that they will never back down, ever, ever.

It was deliciously pagan.

Books fall open, you fall in. When you climb out again, you're a bit larger than you used to be.