“The dancer...knows it takesTen sacred years to learn one gestureOf the wind’s caress on the skin of water.Tonight, in the shadows of our dance,I tell my soul to grow quiet,Become lake, reflect unbroken moon.On the deepest part of the lake,A solitary fisher paddles his oars.At the shore, a woman in red sarongSings: their longing walks on water.”

“I still don't know how to work out a poem. A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving into a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore, but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out, it is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept the mystery.”

“When he came back, I hid my face within my hands. He said: "Fear nothing. Who has seen our kiss? --Who saw us? The night and the moon.""And the stars and the first flush of dawn. The moon has seen its visage in the lake, and told it to the water 'neath the willows. The water told it to the rower's oar."And the oar has told it to the boat, and the boat has passed the secret to the fisher. Alas! alas! if that were only all! But the fisher told the secret to a woman."The fisher told the secret to a woman: my father and my mother and my sisters, and all of Hellas now shall know the tale.”

“Not long after our final lesson, on one of our Sundays at the lake, my father and I were walking along the shore when he noticed a small rock shaped like a bird. When he picked it up, I saw the quick gleam of satisfaction in his face and felt in an instant that I had less power to please him than a stone.”

“How had she ever thought his blue eyes placid as a lake? But there was untold power in any water: to buoy, to drown, to toss, to carry one to the safety of shore.”

“The lake of my mind, unbroken by oars, heaves placidly and soon sinks into an oily somnolence.’ That will be useful.”