This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don't consider it rejected. Consider that you've addressed it 'to the editor who can appreciate my work' and it has simply come back stamped 'Not at this address'. Just keep looking for the right address.

It is true that I do not speak as well as I can think. But that is true of most people, as nearly as I can tell.

It's the same struggle for each of us, and the same path out: the utterly simple, infinitely wise, ultimately defiant act of loving one thing and then another, loving our way back to life.

Our house is like an empty cigarette packet, lying around reminding you what's not in it.

If you never stepped on anybody's toes, you never been for a walk.

... Urban friends ask me how I can stand living here, 'so far from everything?' When I hear this question over the phone, I'm usually looking out the window at a forest, a running creek, and a vegetable garden, thinking: Define everything.

How strange to read of a place in a book, and then stand on it, listen to the birds sing, and spit on the cobbles if you want.