I suppose real old age begins when one looks backward rather than forward

We are all jellyfish, too pitiful and too afraid of being disliked to be honest.

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.

Without darkness, nothing comes to birth, As without light, nothing flowers.

What is destructive is impatience, haste, expecting too much too fast.

We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.

The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind.

The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.

There are some griefs so loud/They could bring down the sky/And there are griefs so still/None knows how deep they lie.

A house that does not have one warm, comfy chair in it is soulless.

It is, I assume, quite easy to wither into old age, and hard to grow into it.

In the light of trust, as it develops slowly over time, you will find that you are a privileged child of the universe, entirely safe, entirely supported, entirely loved.

(on learning Westlife had beaten Oasis, U2 and The Beatles in an album chart battle in November 2006): There is no God.

She swallowed the ridicule & washed it down with criticism, It was far sweeter than the taste of obscurity.

We can never prove that we're alone in the universe. But the Allen Telescope Array could prove that we're not.

Don't be condescending to unskilled labor. Try it for a half a day first.

Appalling is the soul of a man! Better might one be pushed off into the material spaces beyond the uttermost orbit of our sun, than once feel himself fairly afloat in himself.

Work that is pure toil, done solely for the sake of the money it earns, is also sheer drudgery because it is stultifying rather than self improving.

A functioning eco-system is a human need.

Drum sound rises on the air, its throb, my heart. A voice inside the beat says, "I know you're tired, but come. This is the way.

Watch people do their most common actions; these are indeed the things that will tell you the real character of a great person.