The dead elm leaves hung like folded bats.

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

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

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

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

pacifists lead a lonely life. Not even gathering together can take the place of that vast, warm sun of approval that is shed on motherhood, on law-abiding, on killing, and on making money. Someday will we come into our own? Well, motherhood may move into the shade. Law-abiding is going through a trauma. But killing and making money are good for a long, long time.

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.