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

To create a work of art, great or small, is work, hard work, and work requires discipline and order.

A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.

No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I've been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover.

I am also four, and twelve, and fifteen, and twenty-three, and thirty-one, and forty-five and . . . and . . . and . . .

Love is the one surprise.

The virgin birth has never been a major stumbling block in my struggle with Christianity; it's far less mind boggling than the Power of all Creation stooping so low as to become one of us.