“Stupid arguments and the desire to be right -- that's what drives people apart -- that or death.”

“Do you know what the worst part of losing him is? The regret -- that he left before we could somehow find each other again. And now all I think about are the things I wish I'd told him before he died.”

“Okay, so two people who are in love - they are who they are when they're apart, but when they're together, the fact that they're in love is supposed to make them better. Love and relationships are supposed to make people better.”

“Many people are just waking to the reality that unlimited expansion, what we call progress, is not possible in this world, and maybe looking to monks (who seek to live within limitations) as well as rural Dakotans (whose limitations are forced upon them by isolation and a harsh climate) can teach us how to live more realistically. These unlikely people might also help us overcome the pathological fear of death and the inability to deal with sickness and old age that plague American society.”

“Poets are immersed in process, and I mean process not as an amorphous blur but as a discipline. The hard work of writing has taught me that in matters of the heart, such as writing, or faith, there is no right or wrong way to do it, but only the way of your life. Just paying attention will teach you what bears fruit and what doesn't. But it will be necessary to revise--to doodle, scratch out, erase, even make a mess of things--in order to make it come out right.”

“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 other than they are. The irony and wonder of all of this is that it is the desert's grimness, its stillness and isolation, that brings us back to love.”

“I mean, contrary to popular belief, I'm actually not harboring a secret desire to grow up and become a bioterrorist.”