There is, of course, a difference between what one seizes and what one really possesses.

To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.

To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

Chinese are wise in comprehending without many words what is inevitable and inescapable and therefore only to be borne.

In our changing world nothing changes more than geography.

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.

Exclusion is always dangerous. Inclusion is the only safety if we are to have a peaceful world.

All in all, Vermont is a jewel state, small but precious.

Love cannot be forced, love cannot be coaxed and teased. It comes out of heaven, unasked and unsought.

The test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members

Hunger makes a thief of any man.

If you don't see your own value, don't expect others to as well.

Class is considerate of others. It knows that good manners is nothing more than a series of petty sacrifices.

Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums.

Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward we must believe in age.

I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.

Purity is light. Not just an ordinary light, but a transcendental light.

We discover and invent new ways of finding out the same old things.

I forged myself out of a vacuum. I crawl along the highway on hacked off stumps year after year. Some wonder how and why. I never do.

Do you ever want to go home?' I asked Paul. He brushed an ash from my face. 'It's the century of the displaced person,' he said. 'You can never go home.

I put that part of myself into both Brendan and Evelyn [from The Thorn and the Blossom] - as well as some of my own anxieties about the academic life!