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.

Ecstasy, I think, is a soul's response to the waves holiness makes as it nears.

I breathed the air of history all unaware, and walked oblivious through its littered layers.

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.

Almost all of my many passionate interests, and my many changes of mind, came through books. Books prompted the many vows I made to myself.

The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega, it is God's brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blinded note of the ten thousand things, the whine of wings. You take a step in the right direction to pray to this silence, and even to address the prayer to "World." Distinctions blur. Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing.

I am a fugitive and a vagabond, a sojourner seeking signs.