“I am God, la de dah.”

“and God was there like an island I had not rowed to,still ignorant of Him, my arms, and my legs worked,and I grew, I grew,I wore rubies and bought tomatoesand now, in my middle age,about nineteen in the head I'd say,I am rowing, I am rowingthough the oarlocks stick and are rustyand the sea blinks and rollslike a worried eyebal,but I am rowing, I am rowing,though the wind pushes me backand I know that that island will not be perfect,it will have the flaws of life,the absurdities of the dinner table,but there will be a doorand I will open itand I will get rid of the rat insdie me,the gnawing pestilential rat.God will take it with his two handsand embrace it”

“Now I am just an elderly lady who is full of spleen, who humps around greater Boston in a God-awful hat, who never lived and yet outlived her time, hating men and dogs and Democrats.”

“And we are magic talking to itself, noisy and alone. I am queen of all my sins forgotten. Am I still lost? Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself”

“As for me, I am a watercolor. I wash off.”

“I am your dwarf.I am the enemy within.I am the boss of your dreams.See. Your hand shakes.It is not palsy or booze.It is your Doppelgangertrying to get out.Beware...Beware...”

“Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself,Counting this row and that row of moccasinsWaiting on the silent shelf.”