I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.
—Flannery O'Connor

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.
—Novalis

There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory.
—Marcel Proust

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.
—John Burroughs

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
—Henry David Thoreau