“I didn't know then that the mind, like the earth, has several layers: a crust, a mantle, a boiling core.”

“Finally the dawn came, the sky fringed with pink, and the sun bright as a coin in a spill of rising red.”

“...tethered to the ground by quotidian conversation.... the window rosy with anemic November light.”

“...the clear water the color of deeply steeped tea, surrounded by cattails and gracile grasses.”

“I never said to myself, I am longing; that feeling lived at a level below language.”

“It is a fundamental misperception," Fouts says to me, "to think human life has more value than any other life form.”

“And once you've been to this Center, this Truth, you'll know your way everywhere. You are never lost again.”

“The Queen's Pride was his ship, and he loved her. (That was the way his sentences always went: It is raining today and I love you. My cold is better and I love you. Say hello to Horse and I love yo...”

“What Joab did not and could not know was that it was ego, and the ego of a king is just like the ego of anyone else. It is a social infection, entering each person as a psychological virus that is ...”

“I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist...I am a person who does those things.”

“The point, I decided, wasn't to have the autobiography or even the memories. The point was who I became when I wrote.”

“The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but act...”