I don't want to conquer you; I just want to climb you.

I think men can really get in the way when you are trying to sort your life out and get on with it. Because they just take up so much space. I'm not under any illusions that I could have been where I am now in literary terms if I had been heterosexual. I really believe I would not be.

I choose this story above all others because it's a story I'm struggling to end.

Time that withers you will wither me. We will fall like ripe fruit and roll down the grass together. Dear friend, let me lie beside you watching the clouds until the earth covers us and we are gone.

You were in my arms for the first time, and you said my name, 'Tristan.' I answered you: 'Isolde.' Isolde. The world became a word.

Yes, the past is another country, but one that we can visit, and once there we can bring back the things we need.

Language always betrays us, tells the truth when we want to lie, and dissolves into formlessness when we would most like to be precise.