After all the fears, the warnings, after all, a woman's mistakes are different from a girl's. They are written by fire on stone. They are a trait and not an error.

She was sitting cross-legged on her bed in her white kimono, writing in a notebook with an ink pen she dipped in a bottle. 'Never let a man stay the night,' she told me. 'Dawn has a way of casting a pall on any night magic.' The night magic sounded lovely. Someday I would have lovers and write a poem after.

Wasn't that the way it always was? You didn't know, you couldn't tell, you just let it happen... Perhaps they didn't know themselves. Sometimes the line was very fine.

Inside every human being, there is unlimited time and space.

It's all I ever really wanted, that revelation. The possibility of fixed stars.

Once you get below the floor of our personal identities, we're all connected. Perhaps that's why we can move into others' lives.

A cliché is like a coin that has been handled too much. Once language has been overly handled, it no longer leaves a clear imprint.