“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times -- always with the same person.”

“Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others. Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of tang, a pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit understanding...”

“There's only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that's a writer sitting down to write.”

“An old racetrack joke reminds you that your program contains all the winners' names. I stare at my typewriter keys with the same thought.”

“What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want.”

“Courage can't see around corners, but goes around them anyway.”

“There are two types of seeds in the mind: those that create anger, fear, frustration, jealousy, hatred and those that create love, compassion, equanimity and joy. Spirituality is germination and sp...”

“My music teacher offered twittering madrigals and something about how, in Italy, in Italy, the oranges hang on the tree. He treated me - the humiliation of it - as a soprano.These, by contrast, are...”

“If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.”

“It is better to be gentle than rude.”

“We ought to love and be gentle with one another.”

“i can't hold onto love.i'm not gentle enough.i always end upcrushing the thingin between my fingertips.”

“MORNINGTIDEThe wonderful works of morningtidebring the sight of luminous whiteness,a breathing whimsyamong wind-tossed sprigs of green.”

“Tender," she said again. "Tender is kind and gentle. It's also sore, like the skin around an injury.”

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.”