“I wanted a Fakahatchee ghost orchid, in full bloom, maybe attached to a gnarled piece of custard apple tree, and I wanted its roots to spread as broad as my hand and each root to be only as wide as...”

“Sometimes I think I've figured out some order in the universe, but then I find myself in Florida, swamped by incongruity and paradox, and I have to start all over again.”

“Okay, fuck the sundial. We'll just go straight and eventually we'll get there. What I mean is that we'll get somewhere. Out of here. I mean, logically, we have to get out as long as we walk straigh...”

“You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.”

“I, too, had set out to be remembered. I had wanted to create something permanent in my life- some proof that everything in its way mattered, that working hard mattered, that feeling things mattered...”

“Television wasn't getting rid of animals, but they were no longer cast as creatures that were omniscient and heroic. They were talking horses like Mr Ed or an absurdist pig like Arnold Ziffle...Jus...”

“Rich people do not work for money, they are doing what they like to do”

“Why do we need money beyond a point? If we are free of ill health, enmity, and debt, is that not enough? Too much money only leads to less peace.”

“Nine out of ten significant people have to do with money or war!”

“Dont feel ashamed of working hard! Believe that things will change.”

“Be believing, be happy, don't get discouraged. Things will work out.”

“Hearts will break and people will hurt you, darling. Her mother said. But when you let those people control your outlook on the life, you only allow them to have a greater hold on your happiness. O...”

“I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa”

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”

“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”