“Her skin is pale as watermelon sucked free of its juices.”

“And they looked at her, watched her, wanted to squirt her full of baby juice.”

“The clean delicate lines of her figure, the exquisite pure colouring of hair and skin, the charming young arrogance of the eyes — this was beauty, he reflected, a miracle, a revelation. Her virginal fineness and her dress, which was the tint of pale fire, gave her the air of a creature of ice and flame.”

“I am sitting on the sofa.
By the fire and staying in.
Me head is free of comfort
And me nose is free of skin
Me friends have run for cover,
They have left me pale and sick
With me pockets full of tissues
And me nostrils full of Vick.”

“And one of those plants, yellow and full of milky juice in pale stems, now puffed up with air, discharged only air from its hollow shoots, only fluff in the form of feathery, milky balls, strewn by the breeze and softly pervading the azure silence.”

“In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar.”

“[T]here's more than one way to skin a cat. But from the cat's perspective, they all suck.”

“Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.”

“There is a shy client who uses invisible ink on Nagiko's body to hide his obvious talent. The woman attempts to develop the invisible ink by bathing in warm water, by standing as close as she dare to a hot fire, by washing her body in the juice of onion-skins until the onions make her weep and her tears prove to be the necessary solvent to reveal the writing.”

“Never offer your heart
to someone who eats hearts
who finds heartmeat
delicious
but not rare
who sucks the juices
drop by drop
and bloody-chinned
grins
like a God.”