Only with winter-patience can we bring the deep-desired, long-awaited Spring.

It is a difficult lesson to learn today-to leave one's friends and family and deliberately practice the art of solitude for an hour or a day or a week. And yet, once it is done, I find there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious. Life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid, fuller than before.

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

I feel I should not be ... so at the mercy of people's regard. And yet - it is the artist's desire for communication too; without the answering voice you get so numb; you lose faith in your powers to communicate.

I find there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious. Life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid, fuller than before.

The ball of rumor and criticism, once it starts rolling, is difficult to stop.

After all, I don't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood.