“Raw love, like raw heartache, could blindside you.”

“Eating a raw oyster is like french kissing a mermaid.”

“I’m obsessed and addicted and ripped-down-raw in love with Jericho Barrons.”

“Learn to use an axe, and respect it and you can't help but love it. But abuse one and it will wear your hands raw and open your foot like an overcooked sausage.”

“I thought about how love was always the thing that did that - smashed into you, left you raw. The deeper you loved, the deeper it hurt.”

“Like the shock of fondling a raw sausage, blindfold, at a gay party …”

“Beauty will snatch us by the heart
and love us until we are raw with understanding.”

“The raw materials of story are the raw materials of all human cultures. Story deals with the same questions as theology, philosophy, psychology. It is concerned with polarities: love and hate, birth and death, joy and sorrow, loss and recovery.”

“I will remember the kisses, our lips raw with love,
and how you gave me everything you had
and how I offered you what was left of me.”

“Your writing", she said to me, "it's so raw. It's like a sledgehammer, and yet it has humor and tenderness….”