Meanings of all kinds flow through the figures of women, and they often do not include who she herself is.

Fairy tales are about money, marriage, and men. They are the maps and manuals that are passed down from mothers and grandmothers to help them survive.

The female form provides the solution in which the essence itself is held; she is passio, and acted upon, the male is actio, the mover.

If you want to learn about a culture, you look at what buildings the people lived in but you also want to know about their cosmos.

The more one knows fairy tales the less fantastical they appear; they can be vehicles of the grimmest realism, expressing hope against all the odds with gritted teeth.

The vocabulary of pleasure depends on the imagery of pain.

The sombre-suited masculine world of the Protestant religion is altogether too much like a gentlemen's club to which the ladies are only admitted on special days.

Wonder has no opposite; it springs up already doubled in itself, compounded of dread and desire at once, attraction and recoil, producing a thrill, the shudder of pleasure and of fear.

When I was young, I did actually model and was much photographed by famous photographers. But I was always a bookworm.

I was brought up a Catholic and I was quite fervent, because I was sent to a convent school.

I avoid looking in the mirror.

Yoga is the art work of awareness on the canvas of body, mind, and soul.

The reality is that your dreams pave the way for you. You just have to have the guts to follow them.

People are always afraid of anything different. They are afraid of change, " says Sensai. "It is the same everywhere.

Hopefully, imparting what's important to me, respect for the food and that information about the purveyors, people will realize that for a restaurant to be good, so many pieces have to come together.

Never raise your hand to your children - it leaves your midsection unprotected.

Despite romantic fantasies about caring candidates who learn of America in donut shops, most politicians rely on media to teach them what concerns the average person.

I was sick of wanting money. I was sick of being without a goal.

In the case of judges, I wouldn't be shocked to find out the number on television exceeds the number in real life — what is it about those black robes that makes us think ovaries?

Disbelieve nothing wonderful concerning the gods, nor concerning divine dogmas.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.