He [the cat] wound himself around her legs, purring the purr of ardent desire like a kettle coming to a boil and then bubbling very fast.

Pain can make a whole winter bright, like fever, force us to live deep and hard.

Deep down there was understanding, not of the facts of our lives so much as of our essential natures.

I am realizing once and for all the difference as far as I am concerned of women and men and the necessity for both. With a man, however tender he is, one is feeding him - one is always and eternally understanding, mothering, supplying him with faith in himself (not in you).

And one cold starry night / Whatever your belief / The phoenix will take flight / Over the seas of grief / To sing her thrilling song / To stars and waves and sky / For neither old nor young / The phoenix does not die.

It is possible, I suppose, that we are returning to a Dark Age. What is frightening is that violence is not only represented by nations, but everywhere walks among us freely.

Nobody stays special when they're old, Anna. That's what we have to learn.