And the things you know before you hear them; these are you and the reason you are in the world.

...What you fear will not go away; it will take you into yourself and bless you and keep you. That's the world, and we all live there.

Ask Me Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will listen to what you say. You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and goings from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say.

Once you decide to do right, life is easy, there are no distractions.

I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog.

There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.

I have a feeling that art is something you do for yourself, and that any time you turn your decisions over to someone else you're postponing at best, your own development. The atmosphere of the workshop should be that of trying out one's own work and accepting the signals from others but not accepting the dictation of others because that is a violation of the spirit of art. Art can't be done by somebody else, it has got to be done by the artist.