I think that very often younger writers don't appreciate how much hard work is involved in writing. The part of writing that's magic is the thinnest rind on the world of creation. Most of a writer's life is just work. It happens to be a kind of work that the writer finds fulfilling in the same way that a watchmaker can happily spend countless hours fiddling over the tiny cogs and bits of wire. ... I think the people who end up being writers are people who don't get bored doing that kind of tight focus in small areas.

One of the keystones of romantic love - and also of the ecstatic religion practiced by mystics - is the powerful desire to become one with the beloved.

Fear is danger to your body, but disgust is danger to your soul.

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

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.

It's essential to tailor rehab to what impassions someone. The brain gradually learns by riveting its attention-through endless repetitions.

We evolved as creatures knitted into the fabric of nature, and without its intimate truths, we can find ourselves unraveling.