“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”

“I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple -- or a green field -- a place to enter, and in which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an intellectual thing -- an artifact, a moment of seeml...”

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

“Every springI hear the thrush singingin the glowing woodshe is only passing through.His voice is deep,then he lifts it until it seemsto fall from the sky.I am thrilled.I am grateful.Then, by the en...”

“I stood like Adam in his lonely gardenOn that first morning, shaken out of sleep,Rubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves,Like tissue on some vast, incredible gift.”

“I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“If I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and t...”

“I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and ...”

“If a man whistles at you, don't turn around. You are a lady not a dog.”

“I heard the man and woman cry a warning as I frantically racked my brain for some sort of throat-repairing spell, which I was clearly about to need. Of course the only words that I actually managed...”

“I am a believer in free will. If my dog chooses to hate the whole human race except myself, it must be free to do so.”

“The earth offers gift after giftlife and the living of it, light and the return of it, the growing things, the roaring things, fire and nightmares, falling water and the wisdom of friends, forgiven...”

“The greatest gift you can ever give another person is your own happiness”

“The greatest gift of life is being wealthy with happiness.”