QUOTATIONS

“I would like to write as if it were a given to rise and look out the window on a particularly beautiful light on a summer morning, or on one of those winter mornings when snow has fallen and made the whole of New York City quiet, or you name your favorite such sight. To write of the experience of these things…simply because these impressions or perceptions were part of what it means to be human, and maybe because they are as close as we come to understanding the relationship of the human to the divine. That would be fine.”

— William Matthews, poet, from an interview with Peter Davison 

•

… The earth is fair;
all that the earth demands is the earth’s share;
all we pervade and revel in and vow
never to lose, always to hold somehow,
we hold of earth, in temporary care.

— George Starbuck, from For an American Burial

•

Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who make the journey with us. So be swift to love, and make haste to be kind.   

— Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss moral philosopher, poet, and critic, 1821-188