28 quotes
American writer
“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. She read books as one would breathe ether, to sink in and die.”
"She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live."
on Literature
"I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck."
on Life
"The secret is not to write about what you love best, but about what you, alone, love at all."
on Writing
"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
on Time
"Nature's silence is its one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off that old mute and immutable block."
on Nature
"The answer must be, I think, that the beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there."
on Philosophy
"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and with that one, is what we are doing."
"Private life, book life, took place where words met imagination without passing through the world."
on Imagination
"Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation's short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit."
"I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck."
"The dedicated life is the life worth living."
"You can't test courage cautiously."
on Courage
"As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker."
on Love
"Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul can go it alone."
on Community
"There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind."
"Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there."
"Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"
on Faith
"The silence is not suppression; instead, it is all there is."
"When we lose our innocence - when we start feeling the weight of the atmosphere and learn that there's death in the pot - we take leave of our sense."
"In literary history generation follows generation in a rage."