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.

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

An essential portion of any artist's labor is not creation so much as invocation

A gift that cannot be given away ceases to be a gift. The spirit of a gift is kept alive by its constant donation.

True citizens are not the audience of their government, nor its consumers; they are its makers.

What is it about a work of art, even when it is bought and sold in the market, that makes us distinguish it from . . . pure commodities? A work of art is a gift, not a commodity. . . works of art exist simultaneously in two “economies”, a market economy and a gift economy. Only one of these is essential, however: a work of art can survive without the market, but where there is no gift, there is no art.

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.