I don't write about what I know: I write in order to find out what I know.

The materials of true poetry are always humble, absolutely idiosyncratic, the autobiographical tatters that, in gifted hands, are made into the memoir that fits us all.

Memory is, first, a captivating mystery.

The cold was our pride, the snow was our beauty. It fell and fell, lacing day and night together in a milky haze, making everything quieter as it fell, so that winter seemed to partake of religion in a way no other season did, hushed, solemn.

Prayer as focus is not a way of limiting what can be seen; it is a habit of attention brought to bear on all that is.

It is hard to sever the cords that tie us to our slavery and leave intact those that bind us to ourselves.

The future is here, now, and the past is full of actual deeds, real history. Utopias hardly have the meat on their bones to sustain a people in grave times.