The soul may ask God for anything, and never fail.

The universe is illusion merely, not one speck of it real, and we are not only its victims, falling always into or smashed by a planet slung by the sun-but also its captives, bound by the mineral-made ropes of our senses.

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.

Books swept me away, this way and that, one after the other; I made endless vows according to their lights for I believed them.

For all the insularity of the old guard, Pittsburgh was always an open and democratic town.

The way you live your days is the way you live your life.

When I walk with a camera, I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment's light prints on my own silver gut. When I see this second way I am above all an unscrupulous observer.