One thing is certain, and I have always known it - the joys of my life have nothing to do with age. They do not change. Flowers, the morning and evening light, music, poetry, silence, the goldfinches darting about

When we speak of being vulnerable, it suggests being especially vulnerable to pain. People for whom personal dignity and self-sufficiency are everything, do all they can to shut it out. Noli mi tangere. They are well aware that any intimate relationship has pain in it, forces a special kind of awareness, is costly, and so they try to keep themselves unencumbered by shutting pain out as far as it is possible to do so.

We cannot afford not to fight for growth and understanding, even when it is painful, as it is bound to be.

A good marriage shuts out a very great deal.

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

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 are some griefs so loud/They could bring down the sky/And there are griefs so still/None knows how deep they lie.