From one seed a whole handful: that was what it meant to say the bounty of the earth.

It gets harder all the time, Bev Shaw once said. Harder, yet easier. One gets used to things getting harder; one ceases to be surprised that what used to be hard as hard can be grows harder yet.

Because a women's beauty does not belong to her alone. It is a part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.

Words are coin. Words alienate. Language is no medium for desire. Desire is rapture, not exchange.

Speaking the words he had been taught, directing them no longer upward but to the earth on which he knelt, he prayed: 'For what we are about to receive make us truly thankful.' ... he... felt his heart suddenly flow over with thankfulness... like a gush of warm water... All that remains is to live here quietly for the rest of my life, eating food that my own labour has made the earth to yield. All that remains is to be a tender of the soil.

The idea of writer as sage is pretty much dead today. I would certainly feel very uncomfortable in the role.

In order to be cruel we have to close our hearts to the suffering of the other.