She assumes that skill will guide her fingertips, that shapely lines will uncoil out of the pencil the moment she starts. Surely talent is a thing curled deep inside, just waiting to be exercised, and at the slightest invitation it will stretch, shake itself, make itself known? Talent, it seems, is not so insistent.

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

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

I mean, evil and boredom. Evil and ennui. Evil and the lack of stimulation. Evil and sluggish blood.

The sweet accident of coincidence is the best foundation on which to build.

The more civilized we become, the more horrendous our entertainments.

Before catechisms can instill a proper humility, small children know the truth that their own existence has caused the world to bloom into being.