... Let us risk the wildest places, Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.

The end of life has its own nature, also worth our attention. I don't say this without reckoning in the sorrow, the worry, the many diminishments. But surely it is then that a person's character shines or glooms.

All culture developed as some wild, raw creature strived to live better and longer.

Every morning I walk like this around the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead.

... the natural world is the old river that runs through everything, and I think poets will forever fish along its shores.

Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

Rhythm is one of the most powerful of pleasures, and when we feel a pleasurable rhythm we hope it will continue. When it does, it grows sweeter.