I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer - its dust and lowering skies.

I feel like today we always glorify the young, just-plucked-from-college writer. But it's much harder to start writing later, in middle age, struggling on a book around a full-time job and family.

Birth, life, and death― each took place on the hidden side of a leaf.

guileless and without vanity,we were still in love with ourselves then. We felt comfortable in our own skins, enjoyed the news that our senses released to us, admired our dirt, cultivated our scars, and could not comprehend this unworthiness.

You marvel at the economy and this choice of words. How many ways can you describe the sky and the moon? After Sylvia Plath, what can you say?

It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love ... You can't own a human being.

Can't nothing heal without pain, you know.