Maybe a hundred years ago our people should have run away from this place, I said... And then run from the next place and the next place and the place after that? You run once, what makes you think you won't have to run all the rest of your life?... We love moment to moment... Everything changes. One minute we are part of the river, and the next we are joined with the sea.

That is how you know you've left childhood behind-when you wish for time to go backward.

That's why there are ten gates to pass through before you reach the garden. If life were easy there would be one gate. There would be no gates at all.

Certain things need not be said, and there’s nothing, not a whisper, prayer, not a sacrifice, not a payment of any price, that would change what’s about to happen.

I don't really read as much as I used to. A lot of what I was looking for as an escape I find in writing. And the other thing is that I don't want to get into someone else's language when I'm working

People hide their truest nature. I understood that; I even applauded it. What sort of world would it be if people bled all over the sidewalks, if they wept under trees, smacked whomever they despised, kissed strangers, revealed themselves?

Our rest is formed by our waking life and our waking life is formed by our sorrows.