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.

...I feel more alive when I'm writing than I do at any other time--except when I'm making love. Two things when you forget time, when nothing exists except the moment--the moment of writing, the moment of love. That perfect concentration is bliss.

Anyone who is going to be a writer knows enough at fifteen to write several novels.

The hardest thing we are asked to do in this world is to remain aware of suffering, suffering about which we can do nothing.

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.

I am not ready to die, / But I am learning to trust death / As I have trusted life.

Though friendship is not quick to burn it is explosive stuff.