“She was blond as hell, wearing a lot of black.”

“Bloody Hell!”

“Being blond is not a hair color, it's a lifestyle.”

“The world should have been in Technicolour, but seemed more like black and white.”

“When you finish a poem, it clicks shut like the top of a jewel box, but prose is endless. I haven't experienced an awful lot of clicking shut!”

“I was hell-bent on being an effective humanitarian in Cambodia and Somalia. But a naïve fog is finally lifting. Revealed is a train wreck of illusions, the depravity of someone else's war, the futility of a competence stillborn there. To understand this you have to become this.”

“I stared at Kate in disbelief. "I know, I know," she said, walking toward me, hands raised as if to calm a dangerous beast. "She's not coming," I said."She's coming.""She can't.""She's coming.”