Gardening is the instrument of grace.

The trouble is, old age is not interesting until one gets there. It's a foreign country with an unknown language to the young and even to the middle-aged.

Solitude is the salt of personhood. It brings out the authentic flavor of every experience.

In poetry compromise is fatal. In action of any cooperative sort it is inevitable. The thing is to find the balance.

I long for the bulbs to arrive, for the early autumn chores are melancholy, but the planting of bulbs is the work of hope and is always thrilling.

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

There is only one real deprivation... and that is not to be able to give one's gifts to those one loves most.