A holiday gives one a chance to look backward and forward; to reset oneself by an inner compass.

I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.

One of the good elements of old age is that we no longer have to prove anything, to ourselves or to anyone else. We are what we are.

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

I simply adore being alone - I find it a consuming thirst - and when that thirst is slaked, then I am happy.

It is only when we can believe that we are creating the soul that life has any meaning, but when we can believe it - and I do and always have - then there is nothing we do that is without meaning and nothing that we suffer that does not hold the seed of creation in it.

a poet never feels useful.