The question we do not see when we are young is whether we own pride or are owned by it.

The woods seemed all answer and healing and more than enough to live for.

Everything drops away, comes to be unimportant in the dark. It's like sleep almost. A freedom from self, from ugliness.

Old people who live too long come to resemble turtles. As though time turned in a curve, and down they go to the reptiles again. Not the little wet naked frog they were born. But the tortoise. Cold eyes, sagging circles of skin, the nose becomes beak. The shell of sleep.

You can't be a little bit saintly any more than you can be a little bit pregnant.

I am sick of war. Every woman of my generation is sick of war. Fifty years of war. Wars rumored, wars beginning, wars fought, wars ending, wars paid for, wars endured.

Lord make me satisfied with small things. Make me content to live on the outside of life. God make me love the rind!