Pirates have always fascinated me.

Madness. I did not get myself born to die. I have better things to do.

If they had said my writing wasn't good enough, fair enough, that's an opinion. But to say it's too complex is to insult the intelligence of the so-called young.

We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests.

At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be, but what I was, of course, was a writer.

There was no violence, no speed. It moved to the rhythm of an elder dance, putting all the rituals of the world to shame. Black, silver, gold and moon-opal, night and sea, fire, earth, air and water.

Are not all loves secretly the same? A hundred flowers sprung from a single root.