I grew up in North Devon, by the sea, and feel a special affinity for the landscape there, despite a lack of actual ancestry.

I grew up with tarot cards and the reading of tea leaves.

My favourite tea is lapsang souchong.

I'm more a dog person than a cat person.

I was born in the seventies, age of bad haircuts and grainy colour photos.

I've never been baptised.

[My muse] is, in fact, a woman of the world, and precisely because of this, hopes that a diversity of cultures will endure, and that one bland monoculture does not swamp everything.

If we do want to do that [ colonise space to survive, ], then vacuous materialism is not going to be enough for us.

If we do overcome linear time, I would hope this means dwelling more directly in the fertility of the imagination rather than denying it, as some aspects of Buddhism seem to.

Some Buddhists, however, never seem to get past the void, and I suppose I view this as a kind of Buddhist 'Old Testament' that I don't especially like.

I seemed to recall some words from an old Zen master, something like, "My Zen cuts down mountains." My rejection of Buddhism was a cutting down of mountains; that is precisely how it felt to me.

...we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing.

The old myth is true. We see our environment as a mirror to our self-image. If we think we are weak, everybody will appear like a threat. If we think we are strong, we will try to help everyone.

Be good sweet maid and let who will be clever Do noble things not dream them all day long And so make life death and that vast forever One grand sweet song.

Live life to the fullest everyday, 'cause we never know what day will be our last.

The Irish are people who will never have leaders, for at the great moment they always desert them. They have produced one skeleton--Parnell--never a man.

A natural adversary is a customer service representative.

Compassion is the litmus test.

Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.

I'm so proud of you, Ani so proud I missed you so much now I am complete

If the body is a temple, then tattoos are its stained glass windows.