The trick, though, is to not lose compassion, to not allow the sense of absurdity to outweigh the awareness of real beings, with real feelings. Mean-spirited humor turns the world into cardboard, the way Midas's simple-minded greed turned food into inedible and useless stuff.

Passion does not make careful arguments: it declares itself, and that is enough.

In sorrow, pretend to be fearless. In happiness, tremble.

If truth is the lure, humans are fishes.

Poetry's work is not simply the recording of inner or outer perception; it makes by words and music new possibilities of perceiving

Time-awareness does indeed watermark my books and my life.

Time ... brings us everything we have and are, then comes with a back-loader and starts taking it all away.