Robespierre, crippled and blind, has yet to be healed to the knowledge that service - his desire - is a deed of savage-speaking gentleness, not soft-spoken savagery.

The dictate of the light says: Know yourself and what you are. The dark replies, By all means, but then become afraid.

What is any of this to us? Time is endless and ours. Love and Death are only the games we play in it.

I never know where I am going, though. That is part of what makes it so wonderful. And after all, who does?

I've been criticised for writing in too complex a manner for younger people.

When I am fascinated by something, I like to play with it.

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.