One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can only collect a few. One moon shell is more impressive than three. There is only one… - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach.

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

It's as if you've been walking against a great wind all your life, and then the wind is gone, and you can't walk.

One writes not to be read but to breathe...one writes to think, to pray, to analyze. One writes to clear one's mind, to dissipate one's fears, to face one's doubts, to look at one's mistakes — in order to retrieve them. One writes to capture and crystallize one's joy, but also to disperse one's gloom. Like prayer — you go to it in sorrow more than joy, for help, a road back to 'grace'.

We seem so frightened today of being alone that we never let it happen. Even if family, friends and movies should fail, there is still the radio or the television to fill up the void. Women, who used to complain of loneliness, need never be alone any more. We can do our housework with soap-opera heroes at our side. Even day-dreaming was more creative than this; it demanded something of oneself and it fed the inner life. Now, instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone.