“I think my strength comes from being an insane drunk. Near death. Wanting death like a lover every day for years. My talent comes from madness - having survived madness.”

“I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness.”

“They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.”

“Speak the name, and death will come. On the morrow, at the turn of the moon, a year from this day, it will come. A man does not fly like a bird, but one foot moves and then another and one day a man is there.”

“Life comes from death, and weakness teaches us strength.”

“I had hoped to make her strong and healthy, and now she may be too weak herself after this slow death, like my father's slow long death, to come to me. and I am here, futile, cut off from the ritual of family love and neighborhood and from giving strength and love to my dear brave grandmother's dying whom I loved above thought. and my mother will go, and there is the terror of having no parents, no older seasoned beings, to advise and love me in this world.”