The trouble is, old age is not interesting until one gets there. It's a foreign country with an unknown language to the young and even to the middle-aged.

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

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.

The body is a universe in itself and must be held as sacred as anything in creation....It is dangerous to forget the body as sacramental.

I have written every poem, every novel, for the same purpose-to find out what I think, to know where I stand.

in the very long run any success devours - and perhaps also corrupts.

I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep.... Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.