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.

An old body when it is loved becomes a sacred treasure; and sex itself must always, it seems to me, come to us as a sacrament and be so used or it is meaningless. The flesh is suffused by the spirit, and it is forgetting this in the act of love-making that creates cynicism and despair.

we are never done with thinking about our parents, I suppose, and come to know them better long after they are dead than we ever did when they were alive.

Gardening is the instrument of grace.

I am furious at all the letters to answer, when all I want to do is think and write poems. ... I long for open time, with no obligations except toward the inner world and what is going on there.

In the novel or the journal you get the journey. In a poem you get the arrival.

When it comes to the important things one is always alone.