When I cannot write a poem, I bake biscuits and feel just as pleased.

For sleep, one needs endless depths of blackness to sink into; daylight is too shallow, it will not cover one.

Who is not afraid of pure space - that breathtaking empty space of an open door?

The loneliness you get by the sea is personal and alive. It doesn't subdue you and make you feel abject. It's stimulating loneliness.

We are always bargaining with our feelings so that we can live from day to day.

What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice!

I sometimes think that perhaps our minds are too weak to grasp joy or sorrow except in small things...In the big things joy and sorrow are just alike - overwhelming. At least, we only get them bit by bit, in tiny flashes - in waves - that our minds can't stand for very long. p 199