The work of the world is common as mud.

I don't even remember what Mother and I quarreled about: it is a continual quarrel that began when I reached puberty.

We lie in each other's arms eyes shut and fingers open and all the colors of the world pass through our bodies like strings of fire.

I don't think writers change the past any more than other people do, except in so far as we may mine our lives and change things for fictional use.

There are obviously a great many ways to organize some fraction of the material in a life.

If sex is a war, I am a conscientious objector: I will not play.

Depressions, local and larger strikes, boom times, wars, repressions, all impact a life as do epidemics such as AIDS and pollution that may take years off a person's life. We all, whether we like it or not and whether we acknowledge it or not, are impacted by the racial attitudes we carry within us, and experience in some form every time we turn on the television, the radio, go to a movie, read a magazine or a newspaper, or walk down the street.