Like everyone in his right mind, I feared Santa Claus.

She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.

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

The world is wider in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain and Lazarus.

Does anything eat flowers. I couldn't recall having seen anything eat a flower - are they nature's privileged pets?

An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? No, said the priest, not if you did not know. Then why, asked the Inuit earnestly, did you tell me?

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.