My mama always said, You can always ask. The worst they can do is say no. But I don’t think Mama was thinking about revenge and murder when she dealt out that piece of homespun advice

Don’t worry about paying me. Stay alive, child. You must save yourself. And, whatever you do, don’t forget who you are

I felt absolutely nothing, and that frightened me even more than the darkness of oblivion

I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls With vassals and serfs at my side.

Reason forbade me many things which, Instinctively, my nature was attracted to; And a perpetual loss I feel if, knowing, I believe a falsehood or deny the truth.

I'd come into town from the bush - after 28 years of field work in natural systems - and become an academic. So I turned my attention to humans, much as I had to possums in the forests.

I am neither in the past, nor avant-garde. My style follows life.

We cannot accept in victory what we would not accept in defeat.

O, if my husband could only love me even a little and not seem to be perfectly indifferent to any sensation of that kind... O my poor aching heart when shall it rest its burden only on the Lord.

I'm much more comfortable in pants and shirts, running around. There was a typical construction about womanhood when I was growing up that I rejected.

Always now - just now - come into being. Always now - just now - give yourself to death. Practicing this is Zen practice.

If we are not most careful with our thoughts and speech, the words we use will use us. Language has its own ethics, and one who communicates truth is like a bright light in the darkness.

"I want to be a lawn." Greta Garbo.