The world is not with us enough. O taste and see.

You have come to the shore. There are no instructions.

Both art and faith are dependent on imagination; both are ventures into the unknown.

I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer.

Nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have.

It's when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart.

Grief is a hole you walk around in the daytime and at night you fall into it.

In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

Marvelous Truth, confront us at every turn, in every guise.

One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language.

But for us the road unfurls itself, we don't stop walking, we know there is far to go.

One cannot set out to make a work that's spiritual. What is a contemporary iconography for the spiritual? Is it some fuzzy space?

The Christian ethic played an essential part in my upbringing.

If the Settlement seeks its expression through social activity, it must learn the difference between mere social unrest and spiritual impulse.

You really feel an obligation to someone when they're trusting you to do something, and you promise that you'll come through for them.

...What does the blessing of heaven mean? We know the kirin is just an animal, not a mythical creature." It has become a symbol now.... That is the way human beings deal with the world.

We can what-if ourselves to death... But what-if never does anybody any good. All any of us ever have...is one thing, and we better make the most of it while we can: What is.

Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime. For a first offense, that is.

The best picture I got was Bianca Jagger whispering in Mick's ear. I caught them telling a secret, which is sort of rude.

Like an image in a dream the world is troubled by love, hatred, and other poisons. So long as the dream lasts, the image appears to be real; but on awaking it vanishes.

I really believe that I am the first and only artist to throw not just the 'subject' out of my paintings, but every 'object' as well.