“Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can’t even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain.”

I have seen women looking at jewelry ads with a misty eye and one hand resting on the heart, and I only know what they’re feeling because that’s how I read the seed catalogs in January.

Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.

I rarely think of poetry as something I make happen; it is more accurate to say that it happens to me. Like a summer storm, a house afire, or the coincidence of both on the same day.

I concentrate on character, theme, language, structure, voice. It actually surprises me that no matter what I write, people declare it “intently political.” I’m just writing about the world I know, as it is. Wounds and griefs included.

People love to read about sins and errors, but not their own.

Eaters must understand, how we eat determines how the world is used.

Once you start cooking, one thing leads to another. A new recipe is as exciting as a blind date. A new ingredient, heaven help me, is an intoxicating affair.

Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier.

Thanks for this day, for all birds safe in their nests, for whatever this is, for life.

Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me, or paused at least to strike a glancing blow with his sky-blue mouth as he passed.

There are days when I am envious of my hens: when I hunger for a purpose as perfect and sure as a single daily egg.

We agreed with him in principal – we were little scientists, born and bred. But children robbed of love will dwell on magic.

Forgive me, O Heavenly Father, according to the multitude of Thy mercies. I have lusted in my heart to break a man’s skull and scatter the stench of his brains across several people’s back yards.

We’re animals. We’re born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.

I never think that anything I’m writing is bluntly political in any way. I’m not going for commentary.

Tall and straight I may appear, but I will always be Ada inside. A crooked little person trying to tell the truth. The power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes

He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.

The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation, because in the degradation of women, the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.

The Holy Spirit is just as truly in us when He makes no sign as when the fountains of joy are overflowing, or the waters of peace are softly refreshing our weary and troubled heart.

The fact is, we are leaky vessels, and we have to keep right under the fountain all the time to keep full of Christ, and so have fresh supply.

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

Her afternoon tea is a fountain of daydreams.

The Fountain of Youth is in your mind.