She dropped her shyness like a nightgown, and in the liquid glare of sunlight on old boards she held up her hands-as if, in the terror of the upcoming skirmish, she had at last understood that she was beautiful. In her own way.

A male usually had made up his mind before you began to talk to him -so why bother?- but a female, because her mind was more supple, was always prepared to become more disappointed in you than she had yet suspected possible.

It's the endlessly thinking about yourself that causes such heart shame.

I do love to sing. Had I a longer set of thigh bones and a sweeter voice, I should have loved to be a performer.

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

Skibbereen have a hard time at [math]; the best that the smartest of them can do with adding two plus two is guessing: three plus one. Correct, sort of, but not always useful.

I never write a book unless I can't help it. Something has to bother me, like a mosquito, until I have to do something to relieve the itch.