“She was so open and frank… She made space around her, if we just behaved… Everybody seemed to trust this woman and gathered gladly around her.”

“Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light all around her.”

“With that, she gathered her blanket around her elbows and ascended the lily-white stairs like a bride. Outside, snow solidified itself into graceful forms. The peace of winter staars seemed permanent.”

“When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.”

“Wonder Woman is a lame superhero. She flies around in her invisible jet and her weaponry is a lasso that makes you tell the truth. I just don't get it.”

“Gloria Estefan was a huge influence for me. Of course, she was one of the few Latina women around who had this major international success. She sang in Spanish and English, and she was very much the sort of woman I recognised from my culture. I go to her home, and I think that she is a woman who has got it just right. She has her music, she has her family, she has her relationship. I admire her so much because she has always put her family before everything. All her priorities are in place and she is still an amazingly creative artist.”

“She closed her hands around his and shut her eyes, imagining their bed cut free of this strange prison, floating through space or on the surface of the ocean, just the two of them alone.”

“She was so quiet. So reflective. And she could erase herself, her spirit, with a swiftness that truly startled, when she knew the people around her could not respect it.”

“The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty and to someone else if she is plain.”

“He wanted to put his arms around her, but she had a darkness that seemed to stand beside her like an acquaintance that would not go away.”