I've told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.
I wondered why it had to be so poisonous. Oleanders could live through anything, they could stand heat, drought, neglect, and put out thousands of waxy blooms. So what did they need poison for? Couldn't they just be bitter? They weren't like rattlesnakes, they didn't even eat what they killed. The way she boiled it down, distilled it, like her hatred. Maybe it was a poison in the soil, something about L. A. , the hatred, the callousness, something we didn't want to think about, that the plant concentrated in its tissues. Maybe it wasn't a source of poison, but just another victim.
Love humiliates you. Hatred cradles you.
You have to let go of who you were to become who you will be.
I wish my life could be like that, knotted up so that even if something broke, the whole thing wouldn't come apart.
Women always put men first. That's how everything got so screwed up.
When you started thinking it was easy, you were forgetting what it cost.
It was only natural to want to destroy something you could never have.
If you don't like what you see, stop looking.
Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them.
. . . You know the mistrust of heights is the mistrust of self, you don't know whether you're going to jump.
We strive for beauty and balance, the sensual over the sentimental.
The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.
Oleander time, she said. Lovers who kill each other now will blame it on the wind.
