Nothing moves a woman so deeply as the boyhood of the man she loves.

I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam.

He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, for that is what he will know.

There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading -- that is a good life.

One of the few things I know about writing is this: Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book, give it, give it all, give it now.

Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?

I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as a dying friend. I hold its hand and hope it will get better.