“An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.”

“All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.”

“Oscar Wilde: "I wish I had said that." Whistler: "You will, Oscar; you will.”

“This one, I guess," he says. I look over at the counter, he is looking back at me. He is holding a riding crop: "I'd like to try it out." There is a peculiar shift: from one second to the next I have become disoriented, I am on alien territory, in a foreign century. He walks a few steps to where I am half sitting on the desk, one foot on the floor, the other dangling. He pulls my skirt up my left leg, which is resting on the desk, steps back and strikes me across the inner thigh.The searing pain is an inextricable part of a wave of excitement; every cell in my body is awash with lust.It is silent in the small, dusty room. The clerks behind the counter have frozen.He slowly smooths down my skirt and turns to the older man, who is wearing a suit and still looks like an accountant, though a deep flush is spreading upward from his shirt collar."This one will do.”

“Fucking is for bathroom stalls and the back seat of a Toyota”

“I can't. I w-want y-you, my own fucking twin!”

“You fuss too much over making the "right" choice Gaius. All we need do is make a good choice, see it through, and accept the consequences.”