“Compared with me, a tree is immortal.”

The constant struggle in mature life, I think, is to accept the necessity of tragedy and conflict, and not to try to escape to some falsely simple solution which does not include these more somber complexities.

I am too pure for you or anyone.

One thing, I try to be honest. And what is revealed is often rather hideously unflattering.

I feel terribly vulnerable and ‘not-myself’ when I’m not writing.

The sheets grow heavy as a lecher’s kiss.

My mother said the cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you.

I am not cruel, only truthful.

I write only because There is a voice within me That will not be still.

I talk to God but the sky is empty.

Sometimes I feel like I’m not solid. I’m hollow. There’s nothing behind my eyes. I’m a negative of a person. All I want is blackness, blackness and silence.

I dream too much, work too little.

I don’t care about anyone, and the feeling is quite obviously mutual.

Cheers for spring; for life; for a growing soul.

I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.

How we need another soul to cling to, another body to keep us warm. To rest and trust; to give your soul in confidence: I need this, I need someone to pour myself into.

I felt wise and cynical as all hell.

I have never tried to compare myself to anyone else.

The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.

Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

The older one gets, the more one feels that the present moment must be enjoyed, comparable to a state of grace.

The only person with whom you have to compare ourselves, is that you in the past. And the only per-son better you should be, this is who you are now.

Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

It’s natural that anyone is compared to their father.

Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.