“The Poet With His Face In His HandsYou want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world doesn’t need anymore of that sound.So if you’re going to do it and can’t stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t hold it in, at least go by yourself acrossthe forty fields and the forty dark inclines of rocks and water to the place where the falls are flinging out their white sheetslike crazy, and there is a cave behind all that jubilation and water fun and you can stand there, under it, and roar all youwant and nothing will be disturbed; you can drip with despair all afternoon and still, on a green branch, its wings just lightly touchedby the passing foil of the water, the thrush, puffing out its spotted breast, will sing of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.”

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”

“It was like letting go and falling back into water and seeing yourself grinning up through the water, your face like a mask, and seeing the bubbles coming up as if you were trying to speak from under the water. And how do you know what it's like to try to speak from under water when you're drowned?”

“I came here because it's pine-dark and the ocean is wild. The kind of quiet-noise you need when there's too much going on in your head. Like the water and the woods are doing all the feeling, and I can hang out, quiet as a headstone, in a between place. A blank I can bear.”

“You are a creature meant to be free. Almost always, the person hardest to tell the truth to...is you. Once you can be honest with yourself, you'll find the strength and desire to be honest with others. It's the most freeing feeling imaginable. Go find a mirror and face yourself and your darkest truths. You have the light within you to chase away the dark demons that hold you down and push you back into the black corners of your past. You deserve better. You are a child of light and light hidden behind dark clouds, does nothing to brighten the world.”

“You can be so much in a room that the world outside turns to water. You've got the heater blowing out burnt air, but you still don't get warm. Your ankles are singed, but your head's in a bucket of ice. Time drips like a stalactite. The water for the coffee boils away in a tree of steam.”