Flowers always have it - poise, completion, fulfillment, perfection . . .

When you love someone you do not love them, all the time, in the exact same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships.

But I want first of all- in fact, as an end to these other desires- to be at peace with myself.

Woman can best refind herself by losing herself in some kind of creative activity of her own.

Yesterday I sat in a field of violets for a long time perfectly still, until I really sank into it - into the rhythm of the place, I mean - then when I got up to go home I couldn't walk quickly or evenly because I was still in time with the field.

Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach-living: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid.

Forsythia is pure joy. There is not an ounce, not a glimmer of sadness or even knowledge in forsythia. Pure, undiluted, untouched joy.