Eating is our earliest metaphor, preceding our consciousness of gender difference, race, nationality, and language. We eat before we talk.

I am nervous about dogmas of any kind, whether they be religious, political, or anti-religious. Too many heads have rolled because of them.

Good writing takes place at intersections, at what you might call knots, at places where the society is snarled or knotted up.

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.

Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.

You always think, 'Oh, if only I had a little chalet in the mountains! How great that would be and I'd do all this writing' Except, no, I wouldn't. I'd do the same amount of writing I do now and the rest of the time I'd go stir crazy. If you're waiting for the perfect moment you'll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There's nothing foolproof.

Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly. Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.