Real friendship or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship is always an act of recognition.

The life and passion of a person leave an imprint on the ether of a place. Love does not remain within the heart, it flows out to build secret tabernacles in a landscape.

Real intimacy is a sacred experience. It never exposes its secret trust and belonging to the voyeuristic eye of a neon culture. Real intimacy is of the soul, and the soul is reserved.

We do not need to grieve for the dead. Why should we grieve for them? They are now in a place where there is no more shadow, darkness, loneliness, isolation, or pain. They are home.

Inspiration is always a surprising visitor.

When time is reduced to linear progress, it is emptied of presence.

...the only difference between a young person at the height of their exuberance and a very old person who is frail and physically wasted is time.

Friendship is a creative and subversive force. It claims that intimacy is the secret law of life and universe.

Beauty is the illumination of your soul.

All you can ever achieve is a sense of your soul. You gain little glimpses of its light, colors, and contours. You feel the inspiration of its possibilities and the wonder of its mysteries.

The secret and the sacred are sisters. When the secret is not respected, the sacred vanishes. Consequently, reflection should not shine too severe or aggressive a light on the world of the soul.

Covetousness gives birth to violence, while violence gives birth to oppression.

You may lose your path, but you must never lose your hope, because hope is the path to all the paths!

You know what? We need a recession in this country, because that would finaly weed out al the subnormal, underdeveloped, stupefied, puerile people in this workforce.

People always think their world is coming to an end if they're exposed, and of course it isn't coming to an end; it goes right on exactly the way it always was.

But the great thing, and the horrible thing about the web is you can just throw stuff up there and it doesn't cost anybody anything.

Respect for character is always diminished in proportion to the number among whom the blame or praise is to be divided.

I'm tired of being Scarlett O'Hara. In my next life I'm going to come back as Melanie Wilkes, fragile and helpless.

inventiveness is childish, practice sublime.

George Oppen wasn't a larger than life personality, but I'm not either. And he lived a long time, so he was happy. Going down in flames is fine, too.

Write to me frequently & the longest letters possible; never mind whether you have facts or no to communicate; fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.