I sang in the choir for years even though my family belonged to another church.

When I look back over my life it's almost as if there was a plan laid out for me - from the little girl who was so passionate about animals who longed to go to Africa and whose family couldn't afford to put her through college. Everyone laughed at my dreams. I was supposed to be a secretary in Bournemouth.

Bulls can do nothing to demand justice. They can only defend themselves as best they can in a fight with a pre-determined ending and die never knowing why they were forced to endure such a painful and prolonged death. It's up to us as a civilized society to call for an end to the Running of the Bulls and bullfighting.

People could rationally decide that prolonged relationships take up too much time and effort and that they'd much rather do other kinds of things. But most people are afraid of rejection.

It was actually a women's writing group I belonged to in graduate school that gave me the courage to move from poetry to fiction.

All changes even the most longed for have their melancholy for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves we must die to one life before we can enter another.

I longed to arrest all beauty that came before me and at length the longing has been satisfied.

As a young man even if I was going to see a play or a film by myself I didn't feel like I was alone. There was something that was unfolding up there that brought me into it. And I recognised that. For those two hours it made me feel like I belonged to something really good.

How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete.