A story is told as much by silence as by speech.

Philosophy means nothing unless it is connected to birth, death, and the continuance of life. Anytime you are going to build a society that works, you have to begin from nature and the body.

Even in the grimmest of circumstances, a shift in perspective can create startling change.

I think artists can go to a level of vision that can often save us from a situation which seems to have no solution whatsoever.

One can find traces of every life in each life.

I love that moment in writing when language falls short. There is something more there. A larger body. Even by the failure of words I begin to detect its dimensions. As I work the prose, shift the verbs, look for new adjectives, a different rhythm, syntax, something new begins to come to the surface.

We are nature. We are nature seeing nature. The red-winged blackbird flies in us.