And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

I have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you better not get cluttered up with too many material things.

But I also say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it's done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive.

I simply do not distinguish between work and play.

You want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world doesn't need any more of that sound.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing.