I like to take the time out to listen to the trees, much in the same way that I listen to a sea shell, holding my ear against the rough bark of the trunk, hearing the inner singing of the sap. It's a lovely sound, the beating of the heart of the tree.

Time exists so that everything doesn't happen at once.

We turn to stories and pictures and music because they show us who and what and why we are.

Agape love is...profound concern for the well-being of another, without any desire to control that other, to be thanked by that other, or to enjoy the process.

I can't think of one great human being in the arts, or in history generally, who conformed, who succeeded, as education experts tell us children must succeed, with his peer group.

I love my mother, not as a prisoner of atherosclerosis, but as a person; and I must love her enough to accept her as she is, now, for as long as this dwindling may take.

A lot of the shadow self is the home of poetry, story, prayer. My deepest understandings are often released from the part of me of which I am least aware most of the time.