Full of troubles, the mind is still the only Garden of Delight.

Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

Life is to short to hate someone or give a damn about someone

Is the price of happiness not weighed in the cost of commitment, the value of life’s experience in the plurality of existence and measured in a love shared?

If I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from the easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for the future I propose myself?

At its best, life is completely unpredictable.

My pride and identity is wrapped up in my big trips. But I can't always be on one - I need to plan them and fund them, and I want some semblance of a normal life too.

I don't go around looking at my pictures.

Few of us go through life without taking part in some kind of rite of passage.

Change the molecules, juices in the blood, so they do things differently.

Vermont is a country unto itself.

One attraction of Latin is that you can immerse yourself in the poems of Horace and Catullus without fretting over how to say, "Have a nice day."