There is no such thing as an artist: there is only the world lit or unlit as the light allows. When the candle is burning, who looks at the wick? When the candle is out, who needs it?

The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.

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

You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then-and only then-it is handed to you.

At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear; I reap the harvest of the rest of the year's planting

We are here to abet creation and to witness to it, to notice each other's beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house.

Could two live that way? Could two live under the wild rose, and explore by the pond, so that the smooth mind of each is as everywhere present to the other, and as received and as unchallenged, as falling snow?