I lay there knowing something eerie ties us to the world of animals. Sometimes the animals pull you backward into it. You share hunger and fear with them like salt in blood.

The gaze of the wolf reached into our soul.

real beauty is so deep you have to move into darkness to understand it.

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.

It does not demean men to want to be what they imagine the wolf to be, but it does demean them to kill the animal for it.

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.