In books I found explicitly, flamboyantly, everything censored in life.

Head held high and lips parted, she breathed in the music, sending it through her torso and arms and legs the way the Tai Chi teacher told us to breath the air, transforming it into energy, motion. Dancing is the body's song, and Bess sang.

Nothing is as horrendous as imagining the times of happiness from an environment which is that of hell.

Like the bodies of dancers or athletes, the minds of readers are genuinely happy and self-possessed only when cavorting around, doing their stretches and leaps and jumps to the tune of words.

Reading. Reading was the stable backdrop against which my life was played.

I have done what people do, my life makes a reasonable showing. Can I go back to my books now?

Getting away from being 'a good girl' is important because it's impossible to be a 'good girl' and a writer at the same time.