In the bare room under the old library on the hill in the town at the tip of the small peninsula on the cold island so far from everything else, I lived among strangers and birds.

Memory, even in the rest of us, is a shifting, fading, partial thing, a net that doesn't catch all the fish by any means and sometimes catches butterflies that don't exist.

Pain serves a purpose. Without it you are in danger. What you cannot feel you cannot take care of.

Writing is saying to no one and to everyone the things it is not possible to say to someone.

We make ourselves large or small, here or there, in our empathies.

The self is also a creation, the principal work of your life, the crafting of which makes everyone an artist.

Memory, even in the rest of us, is a shifting, fading, partial thing, a net that doesn’t catch all the fish by any means and sometimes catches butterflies that don’t.

I was being cured of soldiering on endlessly: my job was now to be still, which had become almost easy at last.

Always, just beyond all these things, was the silver sea, the lace border around all land like the silence around sounds or the unknowns beyond all knowledge.

Disenchantment is the blessing of becoming yourself.

To tell a story is always to translate the raw material into a specific shape, to select out of the boundless potential facts those that seem salient.

Love itself is what is left over when being "in love" has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

And thenwe no longer distinguish far nor nearThey sleepdreamgather branchesfor this firethe cloud brewsagainst the powerless day —Long line of fugitivesbeneath the snow

When you want to be alone, even few people around you will seem like a tremendous crowd to you!

Design should be easy in the sense that every step should be obviously and clearly identifiable. Simplify elements to make change simple so you can manage the technical risk.

The first rule of survival is clear: Nothing is more dangerous than yesterday's success.

Gross and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than to talent; for wealth, although it be a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible.

I am convinced the next major attack against the United States may well be conducted by people with Asian or African faces, not the ones that many Americans are alert to.

Make men work together, show them that beyond their differences and geographical boundaries there lies a common interest.

Because there were all kinds of hell - some were black and dirty, and some were silvery and high.