We have to believe that every person counts, counts as a creative force that can move mountains.

For me the moral dilemma this past year has been how to make peace with the unacceptable.

May we agree that private life is irrelevant? Multiple, mixed, ambiguous at best - out of it we try to fashion the crystal clear, the singular, the absolute, and that is what is relevant; that is what matters.

Innocence is not pure so much as pleased, Always expectant, bright-eyed, self-enclosed

Gardening is an instrument of grace.

It is possible, I suppose, that we are returning to a Dark Age. What is frightening is that violence is not only represented by nations, but everywhere walks among us freely.

There was such a thing as women's work and it consisted chiefly, Hilary sometimes thought, in being able to stand constant interruption and keep your temper. . . .