That the world I was in could be soft, lovely, and nourishing was more than I could bear, and so I stood there and wept, for I didn't want to love one more thing in my life, didn't want one more thing that could make my heart break into a million little pieces at my feet.

When I write a book, I hope to be beyond mortal by the time I'm finished.

What distinguished my life from my brother's is that my mother didn't like me. When I became a woman, I seemed to repel her.

when people say you're charming you are in deep trouble.

if I'd thought that nobody would like it as I was writing it, I would have written it even more. But I never think of the audience. I never think of people reading. I never think of people, period.

No matter how happy I had been in the past I do not long for it. The present is always the moment for which I love.

I had come to feel that my mother's love for me was designed solely to make me into an echo of her; and I didn't know why, but I felt that I would rather be dead than become just an echo of someone.