Her sister's shoes. They sparkeled even in the darkening afternoon. They sparkeled like yellow diamonds, and embers of blood and thorny stars.

How poetic you are," she said. "I've a notion that poetry is the highest form of self-deception.

To look into the mirror is to see the future, in blood and rubies.

It was mild monsters like these that made Jack the Ripper go after young women, she decided: who could tolerate yielding the world to someone who behaved as if she had given birth to the very world herself?

I never use the words HUMANIST or HUMANITARIAN, as it seems to me that to be human is to be capable of the most heinous crimes in nature.

Immortality is a chancy thing; it cannot be promised or earned. Perhaps it cannot even be identified for what it is.

The body apologizes to the soul for its errors, and the soul asks forgiveness for squatting in the body without invitation.