The Peruvian flute music is . . . cool. In this music, they have not yet invented the industrial revolution that leads to excessive punctuality or the failed experiment they call the nuclear family. This is the music of elements, untarnished, unrehearsed.

Just being in a room with myself is almost more stimulation than I can bear.

All good writing is built one good line at a time. You build a novel the same way you do a pyramid. One word, one stone at a time, underneath a full moon while the fingers bleed.

As a citizen of the post-historical variety, I am in continual mourning and prepared for worse.

To be one woman, truly, wholly, is to be all women. Tend one garden and you will birth worlds.

writing is about doing something very close to the bone. It's about shocking yourself. When I write, I like to make myself cry, laugh - I like to give myself an experience. I see a lot of writing out there that's very safe. But if you're not scaring yourself, why would you think that you'd be scaring anybody else? If you're not coming to a revelation about your place in the universe, why would you think anyone else would?

Like I'm dragging bundles of old clothes? I'm carrying artifacts that breathe fire. I'm talking about a language of smoke. These are three-dimensional creatures that can mate. I'd no more leave them go by the side of the trail than I would my child. I'll carry them until someone amputates my arms.