Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like Braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, or tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.

Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.

The continuous narrative of existence is a lie. There is no continuous narrative, there are lit-up moments, and the rest is dark.

The most prosaic of us betray a belief in the inward life every time we talk about 'my body' rather than 'I.

I would eat my way into perdition to taste you.

We're in a strange situation where people either don't read at all or they read a lot. There's a huge gap in between. That's something that would be good to bridge so it doesn't have to be one thing or the other. Books could be part of life in a more relaxed way. I'd like to see that.

To tell someone not to be emotional is to tell them to be dead.