In middle age we are apt to reach the horrifying conclusion that all sorrow, all pain, all passionate regret and loss and bitter disillusionment are self-made

In spite of the cost of living, it's still popular.

Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.

To be an American is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.

I write what I would like to read.

I wonder if children don't begin to reject both poetry and religion for similar reasons, because the way both are taught takes the life out of them.

Poets and monks... We're both sort of peripheral to the world.