“We hit the sidewalk, and dropped hands. How I wished, right then, that the whole world was a street.”

I didn’t mind the quiet stretches. It was like we were trying out the idea of being side by side.

It’s such a fraught and exciting and kind of horrible time.

Listen. Look. Desire is a house. Desire needs closed space. Desire runs out of doors or windows, or slats or pinpricks, it can’t fit under the sky, too large. Close the doors. Close the windows.

When language is treated beautifully and interestingly, it can feel good for the body: It’s nourishing; it’s rejuvenating.

You try, you seem totally nuts, you go underground.

When the light at Vernon turned green, we stepped into the street and George grabbed my hand and the ghosts of our younger selves crossed with us.

I have had with novel writing, and I have put to bed big chunks of work that just didn’t sustain my interest.

I was with them for all of it, but more like an echo than a participant.

and I get refill number three or four and the wine is making my bones loose and it’s giving my hair a red sheen and my breasts are blooming and my eyes feel sultry and wise and the dress is water.

As soon as you laugh from nerves or make a joke or say something just to say something or get all involved with the bushes, then you blow open a window in your house of desire and it can’t heat up as well. Cold draft comes in.

There’s a gift in your lap and it’s beautifully wrapped and it’s not your birthday.

Sometimes, she said, mostly to herself, I feel I do not know my children…

My lover is experiencing reverse evolution.

A Dorito asks nothing of you, which is its great gift. It only asks that you are not there.

You feel wonderful, you feel like somebody knows you’re alive, you feel fear because it could be a bomb, because you think you’re that important.

I want to be violated by insight.

Nature having developed their bodies in one direction and their brains in another, while human beings, on the other hand, drew from Mr. Darwin’s lottery of evolution both the winning ticket and the stub to match it.

I have noticed bakers with swelled hands, and painful, too; in fact the hands of all such workers become much thickened by the constant pressure of kneading the dough.

He learned to write with his left hand, which was soon thereafter seized with the same disorder.

You wouldn’t think that sorrow could be a light, would you, dearie? But it can. And then after that, service lights it. Yes. . . . I think that is what love is to a woman . . . a lantern in her hand.

A year later, I had it on all my fingers. My hands looked like the hands of an alligator. So I fist bumped people instead of shaking hands for a few years.

A map says to you, ‘Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not.’ It says, ‘I am the earth in the palm of your hand. Without me, you are alone and lost.

It’s hilarious, a bit crazy, and it should make anyone wonder why people put their careers in the hands of these idiotsand remember I’m one of them. If you have a child, make sure he or she reads this before starting at the bottom- anywhere.

I myself, with my own hands, have done 5,000 abortions. I have supervised another 10,000 that residents have done under my direction. So I have 75,000 abortions in my life. Those are pretty good credentials to speak on the subject of abortion.