I have a vivid memory of what happened， and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. "Jeff， you're so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates， figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division." That's not what happened. Instead， my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying， my grandfather， who had been driving in silence， pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble？ My grandfather was a highly intelligent， quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me， and maybe this was to be the first time？ Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me， and after a bit of silence， he gently and calmly said， "Jeff， one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever."

最好的肥料是将农民的知识与自然的智慧相结合。

我相信每一个挑战都是一个成长的机会。

"The fundamental fact about all of us is that we're alive for a while but will die before long. This fact is the real root cause of all our anger and pain."

我经常思考劳动和时间。

To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive and impoverished.

生存就是在苦难中找到意义。