things that have cost more than they're worth leave a bitter taste. A taste of salt and sweat.

... love and fear increase together with a precision almost mathematical: the greater the love is then the greater the fear is.

The writer's advantage, in some respects, over those whose expression lies in other fields, is in the privilege of a double - sometimes a triple - living. Pleasure multiplied in the mirrors of words, and pain siphoned off in words.

What is sanity, after all, except the control of madness?

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

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.

And blessed are they who have learned the rhythms of the invisible clock whose hours and minutes are immense and soundless. The great clock of the seasons and the years, and the small clock of the intuition, whose timing is guided by the heart.