The passage into mystery always refreshes. If, when we work, we can look once a day upon the face of mystery, then our labor satisfies. We are lightened when our gifts rise from pools we cannot fathom. Then we know they are not a solitary egotism and they are inexhaustible.

The gift finds the man attractive who stands with an empty bowl he does not own.

When we are moved by art we are grateful that the artist lived, grateful that he labored in the service of his gifts.

We are only alive to the degree that we can let ourselves be moved.

An anaesthetic is a poet-killer.

I think of a myth as a story that helps you explain all the different pieces of your life. In that broad sense, there is no way to live without mythology.

We are each born into a situation-a particular body (its race, sex, health...), a set of ancestors, a community, a nation-and born into the stories told of each of these.