Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you..

Having chosen this foolishness, I was a free being. How could the world ever stop me, how could I betray myself, if I was not afraid?.

The mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness; the mind wants to know all the world, and all eternity, and God..

The world is wider in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we ….

As a thinker I keep discovering that beauty itself is as much a fact, and a mystery...I consider nature's facts -- its beautiful and grotesque forms ….

It should surprise no one that the life of the writer - such as it is - is colorless to the point of sensory deprivation. Many writers do little else….

You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then-and only then-it is handed to you..

Tonight I walked around the pond scaring frogs; a couple of them jumped off, going, in effect, eek, and most grunted, and the pond was still. But one….

Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundan….

I work mornings only. I go out to lunch. Afternoons I play with the baby, walk with my husband, or shovel mail..

Johnston's books are beautifully written and among the funniest I have ever read..

What I sought in books was imagination. It was depth, depth of thought and feeling; some sort of extreme of subject matter; some nearness to death; s….

I can't dance anymore. Total knee replacements. I can't do anything anymore..

I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and discovered them again..

There is no such thing as an artist: there is only the world lit or unlit as the light allows. When the candle is burning, who looks at the wick? Whe….

Our life seems cursed to be a wiggle merely, and a wandering without end..

The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, & it smells good. Writing is mere writing, literature is mere. I….

What I call innocence is the spirit's unself-conscious state at any moment of pure devotion to any object. It is at once a receptiveness and total co….

We teach our children one thing only, as we were taught: to wake up. We teach our children to look alive there, to join by words and activities the l….

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf.

It's about waking up. A child wakes up over and over again, and notices that she's living. She dreams along, loving the exuberant life of the senses,….