Alan

“My heart's in my hand, and my hand is pierced, and my hand's in the bag, and the bag is shut, and my heart is caught.”
― Jean Genet, Our Lady of the Flowers

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.
Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.”
― William Faulkner

“Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“...beauty is the projection of ugliness and by developing certain monstrosities we obtain the purest ornaments.”
― Jean Genet, Miracle of the Rose