“Think of a globe, a revolving globe on a stand. Think of a contour globe, whose mountain ranges cast shadows, whose continents rise in bas-relief above the oceans. But then: think of how it really ...”

“What I aim to do is not so much learn the names of the shreds of creation that flourish in this valley, but to keep myself open to their meanings, which is to try to impress myself at all times wit...”

“The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are...”

“When her doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw the tree with the lights in it. It was for this tree I searched through the peach orchards of...”

“Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain. But if we describe a world to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and li...”

“You cannot mend the chromosome, quell the earthquake, or stanch the flood. You cannot atone for the dead tyrants murders and you alone cannot stop living tyrants. As Martin Buber saw it, the world ...”

“[T]hrough bitter experience I have learned that it is best to promise little and then to reward hard work with generosity.”

“When you win and the other fellow loses, what do you see? A losing face. There is great joy in losing and making the other person win and have a happy face. Who will be the happiest person? The one...”

“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?Look at the birds of...”

“Good writing is remembering detail. Most people want to forget. Don't forget things that were painful or embarrassing or silly. Turn them into a story that tells the truth.”

“When we stop noticing small things, we are no longer truly alive.”

“There is a part of everything which is unexplored,because we are accustomed to using our eyes only in association with the memory of what people before us have thought of the thing we are looking a...”