I went to collect the few personal belongings which...I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.

You don't think before you do something foolish. You do your thinking afterwards.

When she raises her eyelids it's as if she were taking off all her clothes.

Never touch a butterfly's wing with your finger.

A few days later, I found my mother beneath the tree, motionless with excitement, her head turned toward the heavens in which she would allow human religions no place.

To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.

I am going away with him to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name, and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart.