“If I photograph you in the shadows, you become mysterious, perhaps unknowable. If I light you from above, so your eyelashes throw shadows on your cheeks, you could be a Hollywood film star.”

“But any picture could deal with the problem of light. The problem with this picture is greater than that of reflective surfaces - it's one of death. You invite a profound theme into your work when you choose cut flowers. You are talking about mortality and time moving forward. You are saying that everything, everything we see and experience and love happens uniquely and happens only once. When you take a picture of a flower in a glass you are, paradoxically, capturing evanescence. You are also showing the indifference of Nature. There is no mourning in a flower photograph, only a shrugging of the shoulders.”

“You have to choose your combinations careful. The right choices will enhance your quilt. The wrong choices will dull the colors and hide their original beauty. There are no rules you can follow. You have to go by instinct and you have to be brave.”

“Think about what binds you to your husband and he to you. Marvel at the strength of that bond, which is both abstract and concrete, spiritual and legal.”

“Amadora was never far from her understanding of women, glamour, or the fine line between elegant and camp, vulgar and vibrant, life and dreams. ... Color, she believed, was feminine. She said that women were masters of color, evidenced in changing their hair color, using eye shadow, mascara, powder, rouge, lipstick. You could see it in their jewelry- silvers and golds, gems, stones, pearls of every hue. It was in their clothing, from what they slept in to what they danced in. Their shoes. Their purses. Ribbons, barrettes, clips, and tiaras. Veils. All this color to enhance their sex appeal, while men, she felt, were ill-equipped to handle color with the same ease.”

“The best men tell you the truth because they think you can take it; the worst men either try to preserve you in some innocent state with their false protection, or are ‘brutally honest.’ When someone tells, lets you think for yourself, experience your own emotions, he is treating you as a true equal, a friend…And the best men cook for you.”

“The worst dream of the night, when you are parted from someone you love and you do not know exactly where he is, but you know that he is in the presence of danger. You are tormented by a desire to keep the one you love safe.”