She was a beautiful woman dragging a crippled foot and I was that foot. I was bricks sewn into the hem of her clothes, I was a steel dress

A person didn’t need to be beautiful, they just needed to be loved. But I couldn’t help wanting it. If that was the way I could be loved, to be beautiful, I’d take it

Love is a check, that can be forged, that can be cashed. Love is a payment that comes due.

There is no God, there is only what you want.

This involves more than I can discuss here, but do it. Read the writers of great prose dialogue-people like Robert Stone and Joan Didion. Compression, saying as little as possible, making everything carry much more than is actually said. Conflict. Dialogue as part of an ongoing world, not just voices in a dark room. Never say the obvious. Skip the meet and greet.

She was not used to being cruel, but he had taught her how.

I closed my eyes to watch tiny dancers like jeweled birds cross the dark screen of my eyelids.