I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.

Humans are the most successful invasives of all time.

[On gardens:] I think they're sanctuaries for the mind and spirit. ... It's easy to feel wonder-struck in a garden, especially if you cultivate delight.

Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one agrees on just what it is.

All relationships change the brain - but most important are the intimate bonds that foster or fail us, altering the delicate circuits that shape memories, emotions and that ultimate souvenir, the self.

poetry had everything to teach me about life.

Who would deduce the dragonfly from the larva, the iris from the bud, the lawyer from the infant? ...We are all shape-shifters and magical reinventors. Life is really a plural noun, a caravan of selves.