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.

Looking repeatedly into the past, you do not necessarily become fascinated with your own life, but rather with the phenomenon of memory.

French was the only language we had in common, and even that was like a dialect we had picked up at a rummage sale, rusty and missing a lot of essential parts.

poetry is the sung voice of accurate perception.

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

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.

Here, in memory, we live and die.