The writer doesn’t write for the reader. He doesn’t write for himself, either. He writes to serve…something. Somethingness. The somethingness that is sheltered by the wings of nothingness — those exquisite, enveloping, protecting wings.

Nothing we do is inevitable, but everything we do is irreversible.

There is something unwholesome and destructive about the entire writing process.

You don't believe in Nature anymore. It's too isolated from you. You've abstracted it. It's so messy and damaged and sad. Your eyes glaze as you travel life's highway past all the crushed animals and the Big Gulp cups.

You must stop worrying about why things happen and wonder what they mean when they do.

As you grow older, you'll find that you enjoy talking to strangers far more than to your friends.

Writers are like eremites or anchorites - natural-born eremites or anchorites - who seem puzzled as to why they went up the pole or into the cave in the first place.