After all, I don't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood.

I believe that what woman resents is not so much giving herself in pieces as giving herself purposelessly.

Life is a gift, given in trust - like a child.

It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded.

Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.

If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.

I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.

I have been overcome by the beauty and richness of our life together, those early mornings setting out, those evenings gleaming with rivers and lakes below us, still holding the last light.

I feel we are all islands - in a common sea.

I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable.

Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem or saying a prayer.

One can never pay in gratitude: one can only pay 'in kind' somewhere else in life.

Grief can't be shared. Everyone carries it alone. His own burden in his own way.

For sleep, one needs endless depths of blackness to sink into; daylight is too shallow, it will not cover one.

For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair.