“While it is always possible to wake a person who’s sleeping, no amount of noise will wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.”

Sometimes people who seem good end up being not as good as you might have hoped, you know?

I missed you even when I was with you. That’s been my problem. I miss what I already have, and I surround myself with things that are missing.

Everything is to protect you. I exist in case you need to be protected.

We often use technology to save time, but increasingly, it either takes the saved time along with it, or makes the saved time less present, intimate and rich. I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts.

I wasn’t trying to invent better and better homes, but to show her that homes didn’t matter, we could live in any home, in any city, in any country, in any century, and be happy, as if the world were just what we lived in.

It broke my heart into more pieces than my heart was made of, why can’t people say what they mean at the time?

I wish my days could be washed away like the chalk lines of my days.

Ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore — “I’m easy; I’ll eat anything” — can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society.

He couldn’t bear to live, but he couldn’t bear to die. He couldn’t bear the thought of he making love to someone else, but neither could he bear the absence of the thought. And as for the note, he couldn’t bear to keep it, but he couldn’t bear to destroy it either.

Food for her is not food, it is terror, dignity, gratitude, vengeance, joyfulness, humiliation, religion, history, and, of course, love. As if the fruit she always offered us were picked from the destroyed brances of out family tree.

Thanksgiving is the holiday that encompasses all others. All of them, from Martin Luther King Day to Arbor Day to Christmas to Valentine’s Day, are in one way or another about being thankful.

It has shown me that everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us…on the inside, looking out.

Isn’t it strange how upset people get about a few dozen baseball players taking growth hormones, when we’re doing what we’re doing to our food animals and feeding them to our children?

She laughed enough to migrate an entire flock of birds. That was how she said yes.

We spent our lives making livings.

Sometimes I imagined stitching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love? Why does anyone ever make love?

All humans are dead except those who have knowledge; and all those who have knowledge are asleep, except those who do good deeds.

To remain unconscious of being is to remain asleep to our own reality and therefore asleep to reality at large. The choice is simple: awaken to being or sleep an endless sleep.

Today I fell asleep reading a book. The book is called INSOMNIA. I win.

That’s when the magic happens- when everyone else is asleep and you’re awake thinking about the world as it is, and the world as it could be. Make the most of those moments.

Upon the lips of babes asleep I saw light embracing light and so allowed my syllables to rest there as a prayer they might sing in their dreams.

If you try to go for a big two-hour nap, you get groggy. You wanna just nap, like close your eyes a little bit and then just fall asleep for a little bit and then get up. Then be like, okay, I’m up.

I’ve learned That having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful feelings in the world.

Enjoy the best things in your life, ’cause you ain’t gonna live it twice. They say you waste time asleep, but I’m just trying to dream.