The courage of children and beasts is a function of innocence.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

No one escapes the wilderness on the way to the promised land.

At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening.

A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.

As a life's work, I would remember everything - everything, against loss. I would go through life like a plankton net.

Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.

According to Inuit culture in Greenland, a person possesses six or seven souls. The souls take the form of tiny people scattered throughout the body.

The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.

I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.

The dedicated life is worth living. You must give with your whole heart.

The truth can’t hide, Colonel. Sooner or later it will rise to the top, like oil in water.

I find in the Psalms much the same range of mood and expression as I perceive within my own life of prayer.

I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

No man is smart, except by comparison to those who know less

Sometimes I think death is a greater awareness than life. Life gives us the illusion of immortality, whereas death gives us the certainty of immortality

Whenever God is blessing, we can expect the devil to be opposing.

Writing itself is a bad enough trade, rightly held up to ridicule and contempt by the greater part of mankind, and especially by those who do real work, plowing, riding, sailing

I did a gig in the U.S. once for the homeless. I said 'It's nice to see so many bums on seats.'

Investigate what is, and not what pleases.

I'm not planning to jump off a bridge with no bungee.