History and memory share events; that is, they share time and space. Every moment is two moments.

...when we say we're looking for a spiritual adviser, we're really looking for someone to tell us what to do with our bodies. Decisions of the flesh. We forget to learn from pleasure as well as pain.

If love wants you; if you've been melted down to stars, you will love with lungs and gills; with feathers and scales; with warm blood and cold.

Any given moment - no matter how casual, how ordinary - is poised, full of gaping life.

The shadow past is shaped by everything that never happened. Invisible, it melts the present like rain through karst.

But sometimes the world disrobes, slips its dress off a shoulder, stops time for a beat. If we look up at that moment, it's not due to any ability of ours to pierce the darkness, it's the world's brief bestowal. The catastrophe of grace.

Hold a book in your hand and you're a pilgrim at the gates of a new city.