One thousand brilliant stars punched holes in my consciousness, pricking me with longing. I could stare at the stars for hours, their infinite number and depth pulling me into a part of myself that I ignored during the day.

When I was a kid in Ireland, there were not very many black people. I was very much like the strange brown thing, intriguing and cute. I didn't experience racism there. The first time I did was in London. It was that moment that you realize you're black. A kind of lifting of the veil.

I have made my own choice, which is vegetarianism, but it's not the choice I'm imposing on anybody else.

homesickness is just a state of mind for me. i'm always missing someone or someplace or something, i'm always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. my life has been one long longing.

Corliss wondered what happens to a book that sits unread on a library shelf for thirty years. Can a book rightfully be called a book if it never gets read? If a tree falls in a forest and gets pulped to make paper for a book that never gets read, but there's nobody there to read it, does it make a sound?

Being taught to despise your body is being taught to perhaps admire someone else's body more than yours - being taught that your body is good for certain things and not for others.