I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us.

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention.

The poet must not only write the poem but must scrutinize the world intensely, or anyway that part of the world he or she has taken for subject. If the poem is thin, it is likely so not because the poet does not know enough words, but because he or she has not stood long enough among the flowers--has not seen them in any fresh, exciting, and valid way.

My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them to an idea — some news of your own life. But the lilies are slippery and wild—they are devoid of meaning, they are simply doing, from the deepest spurs of their being, what they are impelled to do every summer. And so, dear sorrow, are you.

Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.