One of my favorite poets, Neruda, writes close to the bone. Though I know only a little Spanish, I like to compare the Spanish and English lines and see how the translator worked.

Whatever your relationship is to your sacred tradition in the West, you have some relationship to the Bible if only through the names of the characters.

It is terrible how much has been forgotten, which is why, I suppose, remembering seems a holy thing.

There's nothing quite like a real . . . train conductor to add color to a quotidian commute

The painful things seemed like knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.

I pray I die before they day comes when I do not know if my sons are infants or grandfathers.

I never wanted Mary Poppins to be my nanny. I wanted to be her when I grew up.