Why is love easy? I don’t know. And the raccoons don’t say.

To be human is to keep rattling the bars of the cage of existence, hollering, 'What's it for?'

Then he read the words of the scroll slowly, first in Japanese and then carefully translated into English: 'There is really nothing you must be. And there is nothing you must do. There is really nothing you must have. And there is nothing you must know. There is really nothing you must become. However. It helps to understand that fire burns, and when it rains, the earth gets wet. . . .' 'Whatever, there are consequences. Nobody is exempt,' said the master.

Children are sent to school to be civilized, to learn to be part of the social enterprise.

When my neighbor walks the dogs, he performs a ritual act of sacer simplicitas, to use the church Latin: "sacred simplicity." Walking the dog is in truth a ritual of renewal and revival on an intimate scale - a small rebirth of well-being on a daily basis.

All of these are names given me by other people, but not names I would have given myself. My name is not mine, it's theirs. It's a series of costumes put on my life by other people.

You can't always explain everything you do to everybody, you know.