And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

there isn't enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails.

Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.

That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.

Write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets?

I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.

It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.

The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places.

Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.

But I can hardly sit still. I keep fidgeting, crossing one leg and then the other. I feel like I could throw off sparks, or break a window--maybe rearrange all the furniture.

He wondered if she wondered if he were watching her.

Do not be unkind to others just because you are passing through difficult times because they are not responsible for your misery.

…majority rule gives the ruthless strong man plenty of elbow room to oppress his fellows.

That's what life is about: about daring greatly, about being in the arena.

People crave encouragement, and sometimes the greatest encouragement is the writing of words that endure. Perhaps you can pen a note of affirmation and approval to someone today.

The reformers' preferred metaphor is "leveling the playing field." They should listen to the logic of their language: fields are leveled by bulldozers.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Teach a man to create an artificial shortage of fish and he will eat steak.

Even as a young child, I was a lover of books and of the spaces in which, as indeed in a sacred temple, books might safely reside.

Beasts of like kind will spare those of kindred spots.

There are three ways of learning golf: by study, which is the most wearisome; by imitation, which is the most fallacious; and by experience, which is the most bitter.

You can never know too much about writing. If you think you know everything, you're not leaving yourself open to learn. . . . The best writers are always learning, exploring, and trying to improve.