Gardening gives one back a sense of proportion about everything - except itself.

The beginner hugs his infant poem to him and does not want it to grow up. But you may have to break your poem to remake it.

It always comes back to the same necessity: go deep enough and there is a bedrock of truth, however hard.

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

For inside all the weakness of old age, the spirit, God knows, is as mercurial as it ever was.

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

I feel more alive when I'm writing than I do at any other time--except maybe when I'm making love.