Death is the least civilized rite of passage.

I was the sort of kid who spent a Sunday afternoon prying little trees out of the foundation of his parents' house. I should have given in to the inevitable truth that this was the sort of person I would become, in the end, but I kept fighting it.

I was in love with the whole world and all that lived in its rainy arms.

You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart.

What is this life but the sound of an appalling love.

We are never so poor that we cannot bless another human being, are we? So it is that every evil, whether moral or material, results in good. You'll see.

When women age into their power, no wind can upset them, no hand turn aside their knowledge, no fact can deflect their point of view.