The part of us that has to be burned away is something like the deadwood on the bush; it has to go, to be burned in the terrible fire of reality, until there is nothing left but . . . what we are meant to be.

To share poetry is one of the most intimate acts of friendship possible.

A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points.

To be alive is to be vulnerable.

Love can't be pinned down by a definition, and it certainly can't be proved, any more than anything else important in life can be proved.

In our dreams we are able to fly . . . and that is a remembering of how we were meant to be.

When we make ourselves vulnerable, we do open ourselves to pain, sometimes excruciating pain. The more people we love, the more we are liable to be hurt, and not only by the people we love, but for the people we love.