I feel as though I stand at the foot of an infinitely high staircase, down which some exuberant spirit is flinging tennis ball after tennis ball, eternally, and the one thing I want in the world is a tennis ball.

I wake expectant, hoping to see a new thing.

I write in my own journal when something extraordinary or funny happens. And there's some nice imagery in there. I don't think of what to do with it.

One of the few things I know about writing is this: Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book, give it, give it all, give it now.

We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet.

Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.

Every live thing is a survivor on a kind of extended emergency bivouac.