“If you can't give it all you've got, don't bother.”

“Sometimes the gap between what you are and what you want to be is a little piece of paper called your college degree. So jump.”

“Not everything you're good at is what you're called to do.”

“There's something very enticing about an empty bench under a tree. And if it's facing a river, that's the bench for me.”

“I know I can't own a hilltop, a meadow, or a mountainside. But keeping it a secret somehow makes it mine.”

“When I trust someone I do it without doubt or fear or reservation. And then I work on a Plan B.”

“Imagine you are tied to a chair with your hands tightly bound behind you, preventing you from covering your ears. Before you is a giant chalkboard. A woman enters the room. Her fingernails are long...”

“What is important is not what you hear said, it's what you observe.”

“Sometimes a loved one might not 'spit' the message in the most tender or poetic fashion that suits you, but don't allow a rugged style to blind you from a loving intent. It's the spirit of the mess...”

“Song of myselfNow I will do nothing but listen, To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it. I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames, clack ...”

“Learn when to talk and when to listen. If you're unsure, listen.”

“The Genie declared that in his time and place there were scientists of the passions who maintained that language itself, on the one hand, originated in 'infantile pregenital erotic exuberance, poly...”