“One did not need to penetrate David's secret counsels or insinuate a man in his bodyguard. All one needed was a pair of years and access to the royal precincts. Just to eavesdrop upon his singing w...”

“From "Caleb's Crossing"--This is an excellent thought about family though it doesn't apply to me. I am lucky in my brothers."Now, of all times in my life, did I wish Caleb truly was my brother, rat...”

“Does any woman ever count the grains of her harvest and say: Good enough? Or does one always think of what more one might have laid in, had the labor been harder, the ambition more vast, the choice...”

“Curiosity if not desire, if not plain kindness might have led him to greater zeal.”

“[The haggadah] was made to teach, and it will continue to teach. And it might teach a lot more than just the Exodus story."What do you mean?"Well, from what you've told me, the book has survived th...”

“You know that your church has always taken a view on these matters very different from ours, from the day that the first printing press was assembled. Your church did not want your holy scriptures ...”

“We are looking for a tongue that speaks with reverence for life, searching for an ecology of mind. Without it, we have no home, no place of our own within the creation. It is not only the vocabular...”

“But Sasha was from Russia, where the sunsets are longer, the dawns less sudden and sentences are often left unfinished from doubt as how to best end them.”

“Why the Egyptian, Arabic, Abyssinian, Choctaw? Well, what tongue does the wind talk? What nationality is a storm? What country do rains come from? What color is lightning? Where does thunder goe wh...”

“A name can't begin to encompass the sum of all her parts. But that's the magic of names, isn't it? That the complex, contradictory individuals we are can be called up complete and whole in another ...”

“People often lose their names. Names fall into holes or get eaten by wild animals. Sometimes theyre carried away by the wind.”

“Young man, names are powerful things. You dont just go around using them for no reason.”

“Today I want to belong. I want to feel safe and at home. I want to be aware of what it is like simply to be, without defenses or desires. I will appreciate the flow of life for what it is-my own tr...”

“Nature reflects the moods of the wizard.”

“My calling ties me to no office, makes me no man's slave, compels me to no action which my soul condemns. It sets me free from town life, which I loathe; and allows me to breathe clean air, to exer...”