When one's not writing poems - and I'm not at the moment - you wonder how you ever did it. It's like another country you can't reach.

Where music thundered let the mind be still, Where the will triumphed let there be no will, What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill.

I see a certain order in the universe and math is one way of making it visible.

Failure would only be if you had somewhere stopped growing. As far as I can see the whole duty of the artist is to keep on growing.

What is destructive is impatience, haste, expecting too much too fast.

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. . . .

When I am alone the flowers are really seen; I can pay attention to them. They are felt as presences. Without them I would die...they change before my eyes. They live and die in a few days; they keep me closely in touch with the process, with growth, and also with dying. I am floated on their moments.