The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry.

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

Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past. It loses the future.

I am learning to see loneliness as a seed that, when planted deep enough, can grow into writing that goes back out into the world.

Any life lived attentively is disillusioning as it forces us to know us as we are.

When I was a child, it was a matter of pride that I could plow through a Nancy Drew story in one afternoon, and begin another in the evening. . . . I was probably trying to impress the librarians who kept me supplied with books.

I've come to see conspiracy theories as the refuge of those who have lost their natural curiosity and ability to cope with change.