It's their skins I'm peeling," she said. "The skins of the insipid scribblers, which I graft to the page, creating monsters of meaninglessness.

No matter where I was, my compass pointed west. I would always know what time it was in California.

The phoenix must burn to emerge.

I thought of my mother as Queen Christina, cool and sad, eyes trained on some distant horizon. That was where she belonged, in furs and palaces of rare treasures, fireplaces large enough to roast a reindeer, ships of Swedish maple.

What was the point in such loneliness among people. At least if you were by yourself, you had a good reason to be lonely.

I use my fiction to explore my own unconscious issues. I usually don't even know what's going on with me until I'm writing.

How easy I was. Like a limpet I attached myself to anything, anyone who showed me the least attention.