Peeping through my keyhold I see within the range of only about 30 percent of the light that comes from the sun; the rest is infrared and some little ultraviolet, perfectly apparent to many animals, but invisible to me. A nightmare network of ganglia, charged and firing without my knowledge, cuts and splices what I see, editing it for my brain. Donald E. Carr points out that the sense impressions of one-celled animals are not edited for the brian: 'This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since it means that only the simplest animals perceive the universe as it is.

Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we sense them.

I work mornings only. I go out to lunch. Afternoons I play with the baby, walk with my husband, or shovel mail.

Silence is not our heritage but our destiny; we live where we want to live.

What a hideout: Holiness lies spread and borne over the surface of time and stuff like color.

Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can't think about them. I live with trees.

The way to learn about a writer is to read the text. Or texts.