...in the face of all dangers, in what may seem a godless region, we move forward through the agencies of love and art.

Love, I think, is a gateway to the world, not an escape from it.

Even sad stories are company. And perhaps that's why you might read such a chronicle, to look into a companionable darkness that isn't yours.

No such thing, the queen said, as too many sequins.

We long to connect; we fear that if we do, our freedom and individuality will disappear.

One ambition of poetry, certainly, is to create a reverberant silence in its wake, one that means more or differently than the silence that preceded the poem.

The World Will Break Your Heart. Grief might be, in some ways, the long aftermath of love, the internal work of knowing, holding, more fully valuing what we have lost.

What did you think, that joy / was some slight thing?

There are those fortunate hours when the world consents to be made into a poem.

We love disasters that have nothing to do with us

Because the golden egg gleamed in my basket once, though my childhood became an immense sheet of darkening water I was Noah, and I was his ark, and there were two of every animal inside me

And that's the great thing about living the Christian life and trying to live by faith, is you're trying to get better every day. You're trying to improve.

Gardening is in large measure a phenomenon of attention.

I can't wait to get back to New York City where at least when I walk down the streat, no one ever hesitates to tell me exactly what they think of me.

I believe that yoga should lead us to a place where kindness and compassion are instantaneous.

Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that seems abstract - sustainable development - and turn it into a reality for all the world's people

The whole idea of the prayers of the saints is that God's holiness, God's purpose, God's ways may be brought about irrespective of who comes or goes.

Principles are like seeds; they are little things which do much good, if the mind that receives them has the right attitudes.

Ever since [Ronald] Reagan, they've been able to capture the message and an understanding - or persuade people of a certain understanding of what the nation is about and what's good for it.

It is not too late to turn things around.

Election is an act of God before creation in which He chooses some people to be saved, not on account of any foreseen merit in them, but only because of His sovereign good pleasure.