How right that the body changed over time, becoming a gallery of scars, a canvas of experience, a testament to life and one's capacity to endure it.

She would buy magic every day of the week. Love me, that face said. I'm so lonely, so desperate. I'll give you whatever you want.

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.

Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In life, knowledge of poisons is essential. I've told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.

I took the volume to a table, opened its soft, ivory pages... and fell into it as into a pool during dry season.

His voice was cloves and nightingales, it took us to spice markets in the Celebs, we drifted with him on a houseboat beyond the Coral Sea. We were like cobras following a reed flute.

How right that the body changed over time, becoming a gallery of scars, a canvas of experience, a testament to life and one's capacity to endure it.