“His own life suddenly seemed repellently formal. Whom did he know or what did he know and whom did he love? Sitting on the stump under the burden of his father's death and even the mortality inhere...”

“Perhaps swimming was dancing under the water, he thought. To swim under lily pads seeing their green slender stalks wavering as you passed, to swim under upraised logs past schools of sunfish and b...”

“Wherever we go we do harm, forgivingourselves as wheels do cement for wearingeach other out. We set this houseon fire, forgetting that we live within.(from "To a Meadowlark," for M.L. Smoker)”

“A poet must discover that its his own story that is true, even if the truth is small indeed.”

“You don't have to become what you already are, which is a relief.”

“Trying to teach creativity is the major hoax of our time along with the Iraq war and plastic surgery" ~ Snarky comment of Clive from "The River Swimmer" (pg 47)”

“I have never been carried around by a large boy, or laughed until my stomach hurt at the dinner table, or listened to the clamor of a hundred people all talking at once. Peace is restrained; this i...”

“If I should get lost in all the chaos of the world, pull your butterly net and catch me in the beauty of your love. Remind me of important things -- friends, flowers, fields of cool grass under bar...”

“Make no attachment, so you can flow freely.”

“Unlike wealth, there is an infinite value in legacy.”

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is - infinite.”

“Every person has to prepare himself to the point where no place would be burdensome for him. The place may get bored with him, but he will not get bored; he has to get prepared to that extent. Beca...”

“God always knows what your position should be at every given moment”

“If people dont sleep with me I just rape them. Because right is not given but taken.”

“Hell is not a place you go for your sins. It is where you are when you are not sharing the gifts you were given.”