There are many women who write as they think they should write - to imitate men and make a place for themselves in literature.

What she said was always strange. It had happened long ago. It seemed insignificant. And yet it was something you remembered forever. The words as well as the story. The voice as much as the words.

The woman is the home. That's where she used to be, and that's where she still is. You might ask me, What if a man tries to be part of the home -- will the woman let him? I answer yes. Because the he becomes one of the children.

No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation.

She represents the un-vowed aspiration of the male human being, his potential infidelity - and infidelity of a very special kind, which would lead him to the opposite of his wife, to the woman of wax whom he could model at will, make and unmake in any way he wished, even unto death.

Their voices reach out into the empty yard, plunge deep into the hills, go right through the heart.

All that remains of that minute is time in all its purity, bone-white time.