I had been chipping at the world idly, and had by accident uncovered vast and labyrinthine further worlds within it.

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

About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the roof gutter of a four-story building. It was an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a stem or the kindling of a star.

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf

I wake up thinking: What am I reading? What will I read next? I'm terrified that I'll run out, that I will read through all I want to, and be forced to learn wildflowers at last, to keep awake.

I saw in a blue haze all the world poured flat and pale between the mountains

Art is like an ill-trained Labrador retriever that drags you out into traffic.