“Evidently, a given object took no particular amount of time to draw; instead the artist took the time, or didn’t take it, at pleasure. And,similarly, things themselves possessed no fixed and intrinsic amount of interest; instead things were interesting as long as you had attention to give them. How long does it take to draw a baseball mitt? As much time as you care to give it. Not an infinite amount of time, but more time than you first imagined. For many days, so long as you want to keep drawing that mitt, and studying that mitt, there will always be a new and finer layer of distinctions to draw out and lay in. Your attention discovers—seems thereby to produce—an array of interesting features in any object, like a lamp.”

“Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”

“There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind.”

“Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul can go it alone.”

“Just think: in all the clean, beautiful reaches of the solar system, our planet alone is a blot; our planet alone has death.”

“As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.”

“The notion of the infinite variety of detail and the multiplicity of forms is a pleasing one; in complexity are the fringes of beauty, and in variety are generosity and exuberance.”

“It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our creator, our very self-consciousness, is also the one thing that divides us from our fellow creatures. It was a bitter birthday present from evolution.”

“You can't test courage cautiously.”

“The surest sign of age is loneliness.”

“There must be bands of enthusiasts for everything on earth-fanatics who shared a vocabulary a batch of technical skills and equipment and perhaps a vision of some single slice of the beauty and mystery of things of their complexity fascination and unexpectedness.”