We cannot, of course, save the World because we do not have authority over its parts. We can serve the world though. That is everyone's calling, to lead a life that helps.

The writer works on the inside and the critic works on the outside. I don't know what it looks like on the outside, sometimes. It's not that I'm not interested-it's not where I live. I live inside the story.

To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together.

You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

In behaving respectfully toward all that the land contains, it is possible to imagine a stifling ignorance falling away from us.

If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.

For so many centuries, the exchange of gifts has held us together. It has made it possible to bridge the abyss where language struggles.