I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line.

Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say, "I love you, too."

We are pain and what cures pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours. I want to hold you close like a lute, so that we can cry out with loving. Would you rather throw stones at a mirror? I am your mirror and here are the stones.

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.

Even more than we want good love for ourselves, we want it for our children, those vulnerable satellites of our hearts that we send, unsteady, into the world.

His wedding gift, clasped round my throat. A choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat.