Every place, once unique, itself, is strangely shot through with radiations from every other place. ‘There’ was then; ‘here’ is now.

What reading does, ultimately, is keep alive the dangerous and exhilarating idea that life is not a sequence of lived moments, but a destiny.

Language is the soul’s ozone layer and we thin it at our peril.

A book is solitude, privacy; it is a way of holding the self apart from the crush of the outer world.

If anything has changed about my reading over the years, it is that I value the state a book puts me in more that I value the specific contents.

A poem is a construction of inner space. Language is to inner space as light is to material space.

If literature survives at all, it is as retreat for those who refuse to assimilate to American mass culture.

I read books to read myself.

The books that matter to me...are those that galvanize something inside me. I read books to read myself.

Where am I when I am involved in a book?

To be “out of touch” with a society in which women have internalized their subjugation is an admirable thing.

You can change a body, but you can't change a soul. The heart wants what it wants.

Life is a mystery unveiled with the conscience of truth

We've put more effort into helping folks reach old age than into helping them enjoy it.

Art has this long history, predating even language, of expressing nonverbal information.

There is often in people in whom 'the worst' has happened an almost transcendent freedom, for they have faced 'the worst' and survived it.

Airing one's dirty linen never makes for a masterpiece.

I have a wonderful relationship with my friends, family members, and co-workers. I am appreciated

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.

It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.