I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable.

there is no aristocracy of grief. Grief is a great leveler.

It is nice to think how one can be recklessly lost in a daisy!

Marriage is tough, because it is woven of all these various elements, the weak and the strong. "In love-ness" is fragile for it is woven only with the gossamer threads of beauty. It seems to me absurd to talk about "happy" and "unhappy" marriages.

Woman must be the pioneer in this turning inward for strength. In a sense, she has always been the pioneer.

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.

I am beginning to respect the apathetic days. Perhaps they're a necessary pause: better to give in to them than to fight them at your desk hopelessly; then you lose both the day and your self-respect. Treat them as physical phenomena -- casually -- and obey them.