The High Plains, the beginning of the desert West, often act as a crucible for those who inhabit them..

To be an American is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it..

When I was a child, it was a matter of pride that I could plow through a Nancy Drew story in one afternoon, and begin another in the evening. . . . I….

Men are more conventional than women and much slower to change their ideas..

I've come to see conspiracy theories as the refuge of those who have lost their natural curiosity and ability to cope with change..

A short-lived fascination with another person may be exciting-I think we've all seen people aglow, in a state of being "in love with love"-but such a….

Friendship is an art, and very few persons are born with a natural gift for it..

Only Christ could have brought us all together, in this place, doing such absurd but necessary things..

In middle age we are apt to reach the horrifying conclusion that all sorrow, all pain, all passionate regret and loss and bitter disillusionment are ….

It's all so beautiful . . . the spring . . . and books and music and fires. . . . Why aren't they enough?.

The demon of acedia -- also called the noonday demon -- is the one that causes the most serious trouble of all. . . . He makes it seem that the sun b….

Poets and monks... We're both sort of peripheral to the world..

In spite of the cost of living, it's still popular..

Any life lived attentively is disillusioning as it forces us to know us as we are..

Over and over again mediocrity is promoted because real worth isn't to be found..

I sense that striving for wholeness is, increasingly, a countercultural goal, as fragmented people make for better consumers..

To eat in a monastery refectory is an exercise in humility; daily, one is reminded to put communal necessity before individual preference. While cons….

Maybe the desert wisdom of the Dakotas can teach us to love anyway, to love what is dying, in the face of death, and not pretend that things are othe….

Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine..

Wariness about change is a kind of prairie wisdom..

I wonder if children don't begin to reject both poetry and religion for similar reasons, because the way both are taught takes the life out of them..