I asked myself the question, 'What do you want of your life?' and I realized with a start of recognition and terror, 'Exactly what I have - but to be commensurate, to handle it all better.

Unless the gentle inherit the earth, / There will be no earth.

A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself.

What can I have that I still want?

The hardest thing we are asked to do in this world is to remain aware of suffering, suffering about which we can do nothing.

Lunches are just not good. They take the heart out of the day and the spaciousness from the morning's work.

There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.