I knew chemistry would be worse, because I'd seen a big card of the ninety-odd elements hung up in the chemistry lab, and all the perfectly good words like gold and silver and cobalt and aluminum were shortened to ugly abbreviations with different decimal numbers after them.

I opened the door and blinked out into the bright hall. I had the impression it wasn't night and it wasn't day, but some lurid third interval that had suddenly slipped between them and would never end.

The reason I haven't been writing in this book for so long is partly that I haven't had one decent coherent thought to put down.

Stars open among the lilies. Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens? This is the silence of astounded souls.

I am silver and exact.I have no preconceptions.

Tonight I am ugly. I have lost all faith in my ability to attract males, and in the female animal that is a rather pathetic malady . . . I don't care about anyone, and the feeling is quite obviously mutual. What is it that makes one attract others?

Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted.