When it aims to express a love of the world it refuses to conceal the many reasons why the world is hard to love, though we must love it because we have no other, and to fail to love it is not to exist at all.

Wisdom before experience is only words; wisdom after experience is of no avail.

I love the fall. I love it because of the smells that you speak of; and also because things are dying, things that you don't have to take care of anymore, and the grass stops growing.

There is no appeal from the ways of the world, which must continue on its own terms or take us all down with it into chaos and confusion.

The art of reading is the art of adopting the pace the author has set. Some books are fast and some are slow, but no book can be understood if it is taken at the wrong speed.

There is one thing we can do, and the happiest of people are those who do it to the limit of their ability. We can be completely present.

Nothing in man is more serious than his sense of humor; it is the sign that he wants all the truth.