What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive.

Ah, the mysterious croak. Here today, gone tomorrow. It's the best reason I can think of to throw open the blinds and risk belief. Right now, this minute, time to move out into the grief and glory. High tide.

Solitude is a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot, a tug of impalpable thread on the web pulling mate to mate and predator to prey, a beginning or an end. Every choice is a world made new for the chosen.

In the places that call me out, I know I'll recover my wordless childhood trust in the largeness of life and its willingness to take me in.

We came from Bethlehem, Georgia bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle.

It's a funny thing: people often ask how I discipline myself to write. I can't begin to understand the question. For me, the discipline is turning off the computer and leaving my desk to do something else.

It's a great freedom to give up on love, and get on with everything else.