But why do you want to talk to me?' He is going to say: 'Because you look so kind,' or 'Because you look so beautiful and kind,' or, subtly, 'Because you look as if you'll understand....' He says: 'Because I think you won't betray me.' I had meant to get this mean to talk to me and tell me all about it, and then be so devastatingly English that perhaps I should manage to hurt him a little in return for all the many times I've been hurt.... 'Because I think you won't betray me, because I think you won't betray me....' Now it won't be so easy.

Have all beautiful things sad destinies?

Blot out the moon, Pull down the stars. Love in the dark, for we're for the dark So soon, so soon.

A room is, after all, a place where you hide from the wolves. That's all any room is.

before I could read, almost a baby, I imagined that God, this strange thing or person I heard about, was a book.

She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.

I watched her die many times. In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty. Only the sun was there to keep us company. We shut him out. And why not? Very soon she was as eager for what's called loving as I was - more lost and drowned afterwards.