I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.

Attention is the beginning of devotion.

I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple--or a green field--a place to enter, and in which to feel.

Winter walks up and down the town swinging his censer, but no smoke or sweetness comes from it, only the sour, metallic frankness of salt and snow.

By changing our history and our memory, they try to erase all our shame.

The experience of the expert is an advantage to them only for as long as it enables them to learn faster than the novice

Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.

In life it is training rather than birth which counts.

I don't want my books to exclude anyone, but if they have to, then I would rather they excluded the people who feel they are too smart for them!

I have a painter's memory. I can remember things from my childhood which were so powerfully imprinted on me, the whole scene comes back.

We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill.

She decided she'd rather die in some less memorable way- maybe falling down the stairs, or going peacefully in her sleep at the age eighty, after a nice quiet life with Percy.Yes, that sounded good.

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.

If there is any single factor that makes for success in living, it is the ability to draw dividends from defeat.