There were no men in this painting, but it was about men, the kind who caused women to fall. I did not ascribe any intentions to these men. They were like the weather, they didn't have a mind. They merely drenched you or struck you like lightning and moved on, mindless as blizzards. Or they were like rocks, a line of sharp slippery rocks with jagged edges. You could walk with care along between the rocks, picking your steps, and if you slipped you'd fall and cut yourself, but it was no use blaming the rocks.

All I can hope for is a reconstruction: the way love feels is always only approximate.

Your hand is a warm stone I hold between two words.

I became a poet at the age of sixteen. I did not intend to do it. It was not my fault.

No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.

We understand more than we know.

You're never going to kill storytelling, because it's built into the human plan. We come with it.