I don't have a sense of sanctuary. I don't have a place where I think I can go. I once went to the famous Kyoto temple with the Zen garden, the gravel, the little mounds and it's, you know, it's been pictured over and over and over again. And what they don't tell you is that this little acre or some acre of serenity is surrounded by millions of people taking pictures. So it sounds like a storm of mosquitoes constantly. And it never stops. And there's no serenity. And so not even in Japan can I find sanctuary.

The culture as a whole is losing its individual notes, its diversity. And this is: it's not only sad. It's devastating. It's devastating because routine langua…

The life, no matter how traumatic, never explains the work, if the work is any good. W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Doris Lessing, and Saul Bellow variously believed…

The words, the style always reflects a habit of mind. And the habit of mind comes in from a different angle. The habit of mind uses the colloquial here and use…

It was the silent time before dawn, along the shores of what had been one of the most beautiful lakes in southern Africa.

O golden Silence, bid our souls be still, And on the foolish fretting of our care Lay thy soft touch of healing unaware!

Sooth't were a pleasant life to lead, With nothing in the world to do But just to blow a shepherd's reed, The silent season thro' And just to drive a flock to …