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.

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.

The real subject of autobiography is not one's experience but one's consciousness. Memoirists use the self as a tool.

A careful first draft is a failed first draft

It's always a thrilling risk to say exactly what you mean, to express exactly what you see.

Refuse to write your life and you have no life.

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.