People talk about love as though it were something you could give, like an armful of flowers. And a lot of people give love like that -- just dump it down on top of you, a useless strong-scented burden.

The best marriages, like the best lives, were both happy and unhappy. There was even a kind of necessary tension, a certain tautness between the partners that gave the marriage strength, like the tautness of a full sail. You went forward on it.

Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.

I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.

The world has been forced to its knees. Unhappily, we seldom find our way there without being beaten to it by suffering.

What a crippling art writing is, no body to it, no craft, really. It's all in the mind and you never see it or feel it -- only sometimes hear it. It uses only such a small part of man. I wish I were a sculptor.

Go with the pain, let it take you. Open your palms and your body to the pain. It comes in waves like the tide and you must be open as a vessel lying on the beach, letting it fill you up and then, retreating, leaving you empty and clear.