What is there to do when people die - people so dear and rare - but bring them back by remembering?

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

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

I live alone, perhaps for no good reason, for the reason that I am an impossible creature, set apart by a temperament I have never learned to use as it could be used, thrown off by a word, a glance, a rainy day, or one drink too many. My need to be alone is balanced against my fear of what will happen when suddenly I enter the huge empty silence if I cannot find support there. I go up to Heaven and down to Hell in an hour, and keep alive only by imposing upon myself inexorable routines. I write too many letters and too few poems.

Self-respect is nothing to hide behind. When you need it most it isn't there.

instant intimacy was too often followed by disillusion.

Inside my mother's death / I lay and could not breathe.