There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been.

All my books started out as extravagant and ended up pure and plain.

I worked so hard all my life, and all I want to do now is read.

There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.

Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation's short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit.

The Pulitzer is more useful than meaningful.

The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega, it is God's brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blinded note of the ten thousand things, the whine of wings. You take a step in the right direction to pray to this silence, and even to address the prayer to "World." Distinctions blur. Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing.