We all need people to tell us that we were the ones who had been deeply wronged.

My god has always been a laissez-faire deity, giving you the initial goods and sending you on to make your way.

There were so many miracles at work: that a blossom might become a peach, that a bee could make honey in its thorax, that rain might someday fall. I thought then about the seasons changing, and in the gray of night I could almost will myself to see the azure sky, the gold of the maple leaves, the crimson of the ripe apples, the hoarfrost on the grass.

We all need people to tell us that we were the ones who had been deeply wronged.

It's all a big old chain. There isn't one unconnected link.

It is a rule of nature that taking a day off on the farm sets a person back at least a week.

Ordinary life was laced with miracles, I knew that, had read enough poetry to understand that we are elevated with the knowing, and yet it was difficult to notice and be grateful when one was continually fatigued and irritated. I suppose that unquenchable sense of wonder is what separates us dolts from the saints and the poets.