“Out of the ash I rise with my red hairand I eat men like air.”

“Ash, ash —-You poke and stir.Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——A cake of soap,A wedding ring,A gold filling.Herr God, Herr LuciferBewareBeware.Out of the ashI rise with my red hairAnd I eat men like air.--from "Lady Lazarus", written 23-29 October 1962”

“This is a valley of ashes--a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.”

“Out of these ashes beauty will rise.”

“Something good was happening. My life was rising from the ashes, and the sight of it left me feeling something like hopeful.”

“The best fiction rises – yes, like a phoenix – out of the ashes of people’s sad, true disasters. We write in order to repeat the past.”