A tale, like the universe, they tell us, expands ceaselessly each time you examine it, until there’s finally no telling exactly where it begins, or ends, or where it places you now.

For sometimes you can't help but crave some ruin in what you love.

It is 'where we are' that should make all the difference, whether we believe we belong there or not.

The truth, finally, is who can tell it.

As for what's the most challenging aspect of teaching, it's convincing younger writers of the importance of reading widely and passionately.

So my first book I had no experience having written a book, but each book is a little snapshot of who you are at that moment, accrued all through time, so I accept that.

In this difficult era the most valuable commodity is the unfailing turn of the hours and how they retrieve for us the known harbor of yesterday.

They're not parallel at all. They're my concerns, but how they're expressed particularly on the page is completely divorced from who I am in my street life.

Don’t sanctuaries become prisons, and vice versa, foremost in the mind?

Imagination might not be limitless. It's still tethered to the universe of what we know.

For at some point, each of us will be asked to embody what we feel and know.

We do not escape into philosophy, psychology, and art--we go there to restore our shattered selves into whole ones.

Mother is fading for him, her face receding into shadows, her memory diminishing with each passing day, leaking like sand from a fist.

I've tried word processors, but I think I'm too old a dog to use one.

When we were growing up, we were so poor that our heritage was the only thing we had. Mama would say, 'Kids, pour more water in the soup. Better days are coming.'

I want my songs to be heard by everyone.

Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream.

Every raindrop that falls is accompanied by an angel, for even a raindrop is a manifestation of being.

You know, you pick and choose your battles.

One thing I do know is that we are fortunate to be here and we're here to try and better ourselves and to be good.

We take death to reach a star