A place is a story, and stories are geography, and empathy is first of all an act of imagination, a storyteller's art, and then a way of traveling from here to there.

There is no one as dangerous as he or she who has nothing to lose.

Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.

A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another.

To be hopeful means to be uncertain about the future, to be tender toward possibilities, to be dedicated to change all the way down to the bottom of your heart.

Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don't--and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown.

Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.

Politics is pervasive. Everything is political and the choice to be "apolitical" is usually just an endorsement of the status quo and the unexamined life.

Memory, even in the rest of us, is a shifting, fading, partial thing, a net that doesn't catch all the fish by any means and sometimes catches butterflies that don't exist.

Every minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style.

Revolution is as unpredictable as an earthquake and as beautiful as spring. Its coming is always a surprise, but its nature should not be.

We live by what we believe not but what we see.

I learned everything about fashion during my time at the 'NY Times.

I've already heard from some military commanders who feel they've been undercut by the vice president of the United States, and there's a lot of justification for their view.

Language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly.

I've learned over the years, when someone is complaining or wants to vent and has something they want to tell you, they don't necessarily want you to fix it.

I found myself being more and more involved with people who were rejected by society - with drug addicts, alcoholism, battered this, battered that - and I found an affinity there.

You can be confident and secure and know that you do a good job at what you do. But you don't know to be arrogant about it.

Limitations gone: Since my mind fixed on the moon, Clarity and serenity Make something for which There's no end in sight.

As a black actress, all I was offered in British film was the best friend role, whereas in television, I was offered a whole spectrum of parts.

The media claimed to be non-partisan, centrist. It's not been that way for a lot of history.