She had no images of this love. She could offer no anecdotes. It was a belief rather than a memory.

When I was 16 I started publishing all kinds of things in school magazines. My main feedback came from my English teacher, Miss Bessie B. Billings, who said, 'I can't understand this at all, dear, so it must be good.

You refuse to own yourself, you permit others to do it for you

Gardening is not a rational act. What matters is the immersion of the hands in the earth, that ancient ceremony of which the Pope kissingthe tarmac is merely a pallid vestigial remnant.

Sons branch out, but one woman leads to another.

I've never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It's probably because they have forgotten their own.

Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in?