The only way through pain…is to absorb, probe, understand exactly what it is and what it means. To close the door on pain is to miss the chance for growth.

Failure would only be if you had somewhere stopped growing. As far as I can see the whole duty of the artist is to keep on growing.

Public education was not founded to give society what it wants. Quite the opposite.

Flowers and plants are silent presences. They nourish every sense except the ear.

I suppose I have written novels to find out what I thought about something and poems to find out what I felt about something.

Self-respect is nothing to hide behind. When you need it most it isn't there.

Wrinkles here and there seem unimportant compared to the Gestalt of the whole person I have become in this past year.