Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge of driftwood along the beach, wanting! They derive from a slow and powerful root that we can’t see. Stop the words now. Open the window in the center of your chest, and let the spirits fly in and out.

I am weary of personal worrying, in love with the art of madness.

Iron was black and sheenless, but cleansing and polishing washed away its blackness.

Even though you're not equipped, keep searching: equipment isn't necessary on the way to the Lord.

Do you think I know what I'm doing? That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself? As much as a pen knows what it's writing, or the ball can guess where it's going next.

It is as if a king had sent you to a country to carry out one special, specific task. You go to the country and you perform a hundred other tasks, but if you have not performed the task you were sent for, it is as if you have done nothing at all. So people have come into the world for particular tasks, and that is our purpose. If we don't perform it, we will have done nothing.

There is no worse sickness for the soul, o you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.