For in spite of the snapdragons and the duty millers and the cherry blossoms, it was always winter.

Death is a dramatic accomplishment of absence; language may be almost as effective.

Conversation is the wall we build between ourselves and other people, too often with tired words like used and broken bottles which, catching the sunlight as they lie embedded in the wall, are mistaken for jewels.

Language, at least, may give up the secrets of life and death, leading us through the maze to the original Word as monster or angel, to the mournful place where we may meet Job and hear his cry, 'How long will you vex my soul and break me in pieces with words?

Life is hell, but at least there are prizes. Or so one thought.

Divisions of the kind were fashionable at that time, and it was so easy to stifle one's need to help by deciding that help could neither be accepted nor understood.

It is always hard to believe that the will to change something does not produce an immediate change.