Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way.

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

Nobody stays special when they're old, Anna. That's what we have to learn.

Fire is a good companion for the mind.

I can tell you that solitude Is not all exaltation, inner space Where the soul breathes and work can be done. Solitude exposes the nerve, Raises up ghosts. The past, never at rest, flows through it.

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.

In the garden the door is always open into the "holy" - growth, birth, death. Every flower holds the whole mystery in its short cycle, and in the garden we are never far away from death, the fertilizing, good, creative death.