For it is only framed in space that beauty blooms. Only in space are events and objects and people unique and significant-and therefore beautiful. A tree has significance if one sees it against the empty face of sky. A note in music gains significance from the silences on either side. A candle flowers in the space of night. Even small and casual things take on significance if they are washed in space, like a few autumn grasses in one corner of an Oriental painting, the rest of the page bare.

The wave of the future is coming and there is no fighting it.

For is it not possible that middle age can be looked upon as a period of second flowering, second growth, even a kind of second adolescence? It is true that society in general does not help one accept this interpretation of the second half of life.

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.

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.

I believe that what woman resents is not so much giving herself in pieces as giving herself purposelessly.

The nice thing about really intelligent people is that when you talk with them they make you feel intelligent too.