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.

The earth was overwhelmed with beauty and indifferent to it, and I went with a heart ready to crack for its unbearable loveliness.

I cannot believe this is the end. Nor can I believe that death is more than the blindness of those living. And if this is only the consolation of a heart in its necessity, or that easy faith born of despair, it does not matter, since it gives us courage somehow to face the mornings. Which is as much as the heart can ask at times.

in mad people fear goes on constantly, night and day, wearing one ditch in the mind that all thoughts must travel in.

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

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