Any woodthrush shows it - he sings, not to fill the world, but because he is filled.

You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted. Begin again the story of your life.

The heat of autumn is different from the heat of summer. One ripens apples, the other turns them to cider.

Zen pretty much comes down to three things -- everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.

How fragile we are, between the few good moments.

Habit, laziness, and fear conspire to keep us comfortably within the familiar.

How silently the heart pivots on its hinge.

Existence itself is nothing if not an amazement. Good poems restore amazement.

Something looks back from the trees, and knows me for who I am.

In sorrow, pretend to be fearless. In happiness, tremble.

You must try, the voice said, to become colder. I understood at once. It's like the bodies of gods: cast in bronze, braced in stone. Only something heartless could bear the full weight.

It was a time when a degree was expected but not much respected.

Popularity gives you power only over people who care about being popular. Ostracism gives you power only over those who fear being ostracized.

All stories end when they have returned to their beginnings.

We are living in an era of such interesting new forms, and certainly narrative non-fiction has emerged as a major form. People who are great writers don't have to write novels anymore.

The teenage years are years of great chaos and confusion in your lives, but also a time of seeking a deeper meaning.

I guess you could say I'm like a film director but my movies have only one frame.

I am surrounded here by parsons and methodists, but as you will see, not infested with the mania.

Politicians never live up to all the hopes that we invest in them but I think he [Barack Obama] has made America a different country.

I have resolved that from this day on, I will do all the business I can honestly, have all the fun I can reasonably, do all the good I can willingly, and save my digestion by thinking pleasantly.