So let the world go, but hold fast to joy.

Fighting dragons is my holy joy.

Deep down there was understanding, not of the facts of our lives so much as of our essential natures.

I feel like an inadequate machine, a machine that breaks down at crucial moments, grinds to a dreadful hault, 'won't go,' or, even worse, explodes in some innocent person's face.

all great people are humble because great people have great work and are humbled by the largeness of their dreams.

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.

The gift turned inward, unable to be given, becomes a heavy burden, even sometimes a kind of poison. It is as though the flow of life were backed up.