I feel as though I'm not breathing when I'm out of his presence. He's the oxygen in my air, the sun in my universe, the staff of my life. —Jane Gardiner

As human beings, the closest we can get to truth is through story.

prayer is whenever we consciously try to get in contact with the numinous, the ineffable, the marvelous.

We do not know what things look like. We know what things are like. It must be a very limiting thing,this seeing. -Aunt Beast

Picasso says that an artists paints not to ask a question but because he has found something and he wants to share—he cannot help it—what he has found.

When we can play with the unself-conscious concentration of a child, this is: art: prayer: love.

I used to feel guilty about spending morning hours working on a book; about fleeing to the brook in the afternoon. It took several summers of being totally frazzled by September to make me realize that this was a false guilt. I'm much more use to family and friends when I'm not physically and spiritually depleted than when I spend my energies as though they were unlimited. They are not. The time at the typewriter and the time at the brook refresh me and put me into a more workable perspective.