When I started as a writer, I knew nothing about publishing-nothing about anything!

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?

The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that is cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.

She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood.

Archetypes are universal, and, in subtle or extravagant ways, interchangeable.

We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests.

The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.

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

I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.

No one is ever ordinary.

Maidens who stay maidens turn into saints. Old women become sorceresses. Tough jobs, both of these.

Oh No! My wings are effed up!

I have held the following jobs: office temp, ticket seller in movie theatre, cook in restaurant, nanny, and phone installer at the Super Bowl in New Orleans.

The enemy is at the gate. It is a question of life and death.

Because I frequently encountered obstacles such as old, entrenched ideas, ongoing power struggles, or the lack of staff and money, I also learned to develop patience and detachment.

Some guys can run fast, some guys can sing, I found I could take photographs that people were interested in.

Music is a treasure and a love and a delight. It clears people's souls and lifts them high.

In China, we intend to acquire advanced technology, science and management skills to serve our socialist production. And these things as such have no class character.

It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new.

I think dreams hold a lot of meaning. I believe that if the universe is truthfully infinite then there are infinite possibilities for dreams to be happening somewhere out there.

But you, oh gardener, poet that you be / Though unaware, now use your seeds like words / And make them lilt with color nicely flung.