Think... of the world you carry within you.

That is at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most singular, and the most inexplicable that we may encounter.

I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.

The artist's experience lies so unbelievably close to the sexual, to its pain and its pleasure, that the two phenomena are really just different forms of one and the same longing and bliss.

I want to unfold. Let no place in me hold itself closed, for where I am closed, I am false.

May I strike my heart's keys clearly, and may none fail because of slack, uncertain, or fraying strings. May the tears that stream down my face make me more radiant: may my hidden weeping bloom.... How we waste our afflictions!... [T]hey're really our wintering foliage, our dark greens of meaning, one of the seasons of the clandestine year—; not only a season—: they're site, settlement, shelter, soil, abode.

Someday you will name me, then gently place those burning holy roses in my hair.