Let the grass die. I let almost all of my indoor plants die from neglect while I was writing the book. There are all kinds of ways to live. You can take your choice. You can keep a tidy house, and when St. Peter asks you what you did with your life, you can say, I kept a tidy house, I made my own cheese balls.

Adverbs are a sign that you've used the wrong verb.

The secret is not to write about what you love best, but about what you, alone, love at all.

I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.

We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence.

I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn't flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames.

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