“Stop a minute, right where you are. Relax your shoulders, shake your head and spine like a dog shaking off cold water. Tell that imperious voice in your head to be still.”

Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.

Downstream is always someone else’s up.

Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work – that goes on, it adds up.

The power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes.

The loudest sound on earth, she thought, is a man with nothing to do.

I do my best work if I think about what it is I have to offer.

Vengeance does not subtract any numbers from the equation of murder; it only adds them.

It is harrowing for me to try to teach 20-year-old students, who earnestly want to improve their writing. The best I can think to tell them is: Quit smoking, and observe posted speed limits. This will improve your odds of getting old enough to be wise.

What keeps me awake at the wheel is the thrill of trying something completely new with each book. I’m not a risk-taker in life, generally speaking, but as a writer I definitely choose the fast car, the impossible rock face, the free fall.

…our best task is to move forward without insisting others slide backward.

Like kids who only ever get socks for Christmas, but still believe with all their hearts in Santa.

…nothing momentous comes in this world unless it comes on the shoulders of kindness.

This is what it means to be alone: everyone is connected to everyone else, their bodies are a bright liquid life flowing around you, sharing a single heart that drives them to move all together. If the shark comes they will all escape, and leave you to be eaten.

Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.

It seems very safe to me to be surrounded by green growing things and water.

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for!