I simply adore being alone - I find it a consuming thirst - and when that thirst is slaked, then I am happy.

Try making a poem as if it were a table, clear and solid, standing there outside you.

And I refuse to feel guilty about not letter-writing either. There are times when one can, times when one can't. In the times when an enormous amount of living is going on, one can't.

Gardening is the instrument of grace.

There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.

Words are more powerful than perhaps anyone suspects, and once deeply engraved in a child's mind, they are not easily eradicated.

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.