Think back to yourself at age 18. I know I was mighty different than the Patti I am today. As we grow up we grow out of our haircuts our apartments and - often times - our romantic decisions.

The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.

It has been claimed at times that our modern age of technology facilitates dictatorship.

What I really tried to do with Helen was make her show this sad side of her. She was married off at 16 was so young and living in this castle that can't leave because of how she looks and married to a man she hates and three times her age.

There are signs that the age of petroleum has passed its zenith. Adjusted for inflation a barrel of crude oil now sells for three times its long-run average. The large western oil companies which cartellised the industry for much of the 20th century are now selling more oil than they find and are thus in the throes of liquidation.

You get to a certain age where you prepare yourself for happiness. Sometimes you never remember to actually get happy.

If you've got to my age you've probably had your heart broken many times. So it's not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it.

I was born in ancient times at the end of the world in a patriarchal Catholic and conservative family. No wonder that by age five I was a raging feminist - although the term had not reached Chile yet so nobody knew what the heck was wrong with me.

Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age to die young but then you'd never complete your life would you? You'd never wholly know you.