“I divested myself of despairand fear when I came here.Now there is no more catchingone's own eye in the mirror,there are no bad books, no plastic,no insurance premiums, and of courseno illness. Contrition does not exist, nor gnashingof teeth. No one howls as the firstclod of earth hits the casket.The poor we no longer have with us. Our calm hearts strike only the hour,and God, as promised, provesto be mercy clothed in light.”

“HereYou always belonged here.You were theirs, certain as a rock.I’m the one who worriesif I fit in with the furniture and the landscape. But I “follow too muchthe devices and desires of my own heart.”Already the curves in the roadare familiar to me, and the mountainin all kinds of light, treating all people the same.and when I come over the hill, I see the house, with its generous and firm proportions, smokerising gaily from the chimney.I feel my life start up again, like a cutting when it growsthe first pale and tentativeroot hair in a glass of water.”

“Reading Aloud to My Father I chose the book haphazardfrom the shelf, but with Nabokov's firstsentence I knew it wasn't the thingto read to a dying man:The cradle rocks above an abyss, it began,and common sense tells us that our existenceis but a brief crack of lightbetween two eternities of darkness.The words disturbed both of us immediately,and I stopped. With music it was the same --Chopin's Piano Concerto — he asked meto turn it off. He ceased eating, and dranklittle, while the tumors briskly appropriatedwhat was left of him.But to return to the cradle rocking. I thinkNabokov had it wrong. This is the abyss.That's why babies howl at birth,and why the dying so often reachfor something only they can apprehend.At the end they don't want their handsto be under the covers, and if you should putyour hand on theirs in a tentative gestureof solidarity, they'll pull the hand free;and you must honor that desire,and let them pull it free.”

“A sense of calm came over me. More and more often I found myself thinking, "This is where I belong. This is what I came into this world to do.”

“OtherwiseI got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love.At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day just like this day. But one day, I know, it will be otherwise.”

“Let it come, as it will, and don'tbe afraid. God does not leave uscomfortless, so let evening come. ”

“To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoopin the oats, to air in the lunglet evening come.Let it come, as it will, and don'tbe afraid. God does not leave uscomfortless, so let evening come.”