Novel-writing is the only place where someone who would have liked to do anything can still do that vicariously.

Once you’ve bought a novel in your pajamas, there’s no turning back.

The solitary act of sitting over the page and waiting for her hand to move may be as close as she’ll ever get to the enlightenment of plants.

Now they need only learn what life wants from humans.

We don’t consider the roles that we’re taking in making the world the way it is.

It’s amazing how crazy things become, once you start looking at them.

It had to be U. U. was the only town I could still bear, the one spot in the atlas I’d already absorbed head-on. When you take too many of your critical hits in one place, that place can no longer hurt you.

A leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

The secret of life; plants eat light and air and water, and the stored energy goes on to make and do all things.

You have given me a thing I could never have imagined, before I knew you. It’s like I had the word ‘book’, and you put one in my hands.