For that's what a woman, a mother wants - to teach her children to take an interest in life. She knows it's safer for them to be interested in other people's happiness than to believe in their own.

I acquired that drinker's face before I drank. Drink only confirmed it. The space for it existed in me.

Drinking isn't necessarily the same as wanting to die. But you can't drink without thinking you're killing yourself.

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.

You are what you are and that fascinates me.

I've known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you're more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged.