“Spontaneous eloquence seems to me a miracle.”

“When asked about rewriting, Ernest Hemingway said that he rewrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times before he was satisfied. Vladimir Nabokov wrote that spontaneous eloquence seemed like a miracle and that he rewrote every word he ever published, and often several times. And Mark Strand, former poet laureate, says that each of his poems sometimes goes through forty to fifty drafts before it is finished.”

“A spontaneous proposition deserves a spontaneous response.""You gave me a spontaneous response when you said no.”

“His eyes, I’d long since discovered, could be as eloquent and expressive as his pen. The messages they sent me now hardly seemed decent for a public setting.”

“Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant—a seed—this plants the giant miracle.”

“Why did children seem to be so often spontaneous, joy-filled and concentrated while adults seemed controlled, anxiety-filled and diffused? It was the Goddam sense of having a self.”