Human beings look so different from each other, voices are so different, everything about us is so individual, and that's so exciting and juicy and appealing, and we're attached to these things and they're so fascinating and beautiful - I don't just mean model-beautiful, but all the individual forms that people can take.

He had lunch with Cecilia that afternoon. They ate their corned beef on rye and cream cheese with lox in a diner peopled by waiters who looked like they´d met with utter disappointment and become attached to it.

When you approach the second half of your life, you start to unconsciously consider what you're passing on. As a writer, that's obviously part of what you're doing. And as a teacher, that's another way of passing on information, history, or whatever you have.

Partly, I'm worried that no one is saying anything because they are afraid of being seen as politically correct.

I can be very in my head, but I don't trust my head all that much. My head is crazy. My head will talk to itself all day and all night if I let it. And my heart is less nutty, but it's kind of like an overexcited child. I don't trust my heart all that much either. My body is like a good horse. I trust my body.

But now all the natural secrets have been exposed, and it is likely that the turtles have been sold to laboratory scientists who want to remove their shells so that they can wire electrodes to the turtles' skin in order to monitor their increasing terror at the loss of their shells.

I think women who are very creative and giving members of society can be respected and accepted.