“If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.”

“Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.”

“We all have to start somewhere if us want to do better, an d out of self is what us have to hand”

“What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears.”

“...there is no resistance to the idea that what is foreign can be known. Can be understood. Can be held in the embrace of love that holds the Universe. Given this Earth on which we live and grow, given its beauty and generosity, its majesty and comfort, how can one doubt that one is loved? That in fact there is an abundance, not a scarcity of love? It is all anyone ever wants, really, I believe, and it is all around us as we starve.”

“She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know.”

“I had assumed that the Earth, the spirit of the Earth, noticed exceptions -- those who wantonly damage it and those who do not. But the Earth is wise. It has given itself into the keeping of all, and all are therefore accountable.”