We don't know our own story.

It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.

Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings, saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.

Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day.

Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances.

Poetry is a fireplace in summer or a fan in winter.

If you're imaginatively responsible to the place you live in, you understand the watershed.

The birds are silent in the woods. / Just wait: soon enough / You will be quiet too

Imagination runs through the places where we live like water. We need both things-a living knowledge of the land and a live imagination of it and our place in it- if we are going to preserve it.

Repetition makes us feel secure and variation makes us feel free.

Writing is an incessant process of discovery.

To be perfectly honest, I think she became sick of Society during her debut season. Better to lock herself in her room with her books than to spend her life paying calls and going to balls.

Misguided good men are more dangerous than honest bad men. It is because they are seen as good that, in and by good conscience, the mob will always, stubbornly back them without question.

I'm really a romantic at heart.

The kingdom of heaven is comprised of the broken, the fatherless, the poor, the starving. Nothing that could create good ratings for NBC.

There are two things you can do with your head down - play golf and pray.

I'm lonely and I'm still kind of searching for someone I can have a real connection with.

There are a few men whom slavery holds fast, but there are many more who hold fast to slavery.

To make war upon rebellion is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife.

To an artist a metaphor is as real as a dollar.

Study the world's skin before you set out to look for its heart.