Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.

She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.

The phoenix must burn to emerge.

You were my home, Mother. I had no home but you

Whenever she turned her steep focus to me, I felt the warmth that flowers must feel when they bloom through the snow, under the first concentrated rays of the sun.

I hated labels anyway. People didn't fit in slots--prostitute, housewife, saint--like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water.

I couldn't imagine owning beauty like my mothers. I wouldn't dare.

Oleander time, she said. Lovers who kill each other now will blame it on the wind.

Her hatred glittered irresistibly. I could see it, the jewel, it was sapphire, it was the cold lakes of Norway.

Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them.

I took the volume to a table, opened its soft, ivory pages... and fell into it as into a pool during dry season.

Changes are not predictable but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one's own unnecessary vegetation.

The only constant in the technology industry is change.

A good practice is to ask yourself very sincerely, 'Why was I born?' Ask yourself this question in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night…every day.

I think everybody who puts on a uniform for their country is a hero.

Compared to how I have raced before and how I have competed, the success that I have had, this does look like doom compared to it.

Always remember that you belong to no one, and no one belongs to you. Reflect that some day you will suddenly have to leave everything in this world - so make the acquaintanceship of God now.

If you make it a habit not to blame others, you will feel the growth of the ability to love in your soul, and you will see the growth of goodness in your life.

I don't know that there are real ghosts and goblins, But there are always more trick-or-treaters than neighborhood kids.

Most people's historical perspective begins with the day of their birth.

No action is in itself good or bad, but only such according to convention.