Private life, book life, took place where words met imagination without passing through the world.

When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner's pick, a wood carver's gouge, a surgeon's probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.

It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave.

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

A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order - willed, faked, and so brought into being.

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

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.