An entire lifetime can change in one afternoon. The rest of the world can continue on, unaware of a quiet, solitary cataclysm occurring a few feet away.

But war had a taming effect

What he wanted to say was that two thousand years of peace could be undone in a month of war.

To be around family is to feel the possibility of growing roots again.

He believes that people have destroyed religion and religion has destroyed people. He says he believes in God, but he doesn't believe in people.

What is gone is gone and will not come back. When the earth swallows, it swallows forever and we are left to stumble along feeling the absences. These are our burdens.

We all cross a hundred peaks to get even this far. And there will be more before we each make it to whatever God has fated for us.

Cornered mothers pray for strange things.

The elderly become invisible sooner than we would hope.

Yes, well, people are very good at destroying things, good things.

Can a mother commit a greater sin than ignoring her intuitions?

For her, marriage was a sweetened version of murder.

The music of life would be mute if the chords of memory were snapped asunder.

We're saying the story doesn't end here, that the air in your lungs is there for a reason.

The beating of my heart was so violent and wild that I felt as if my life were breaking from me.

I am very proud of the fact that I led the arts contingent on the civil rights march in the summer of '63. In many ways, I think it was the high-water mark of the civil rights movement.

Those who have happy homes seldom turn out badly.

The human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order and equality in things than it really finds.

I'm not looking to lose anything. I'm looking to continue making movies.

I wanted to be an actor. That was my real goal. But I wasn't any good at it, so I wrote my own material and acted through that. That's my idea of fun. I get to be all these things in the songs.

The fear of not having enough prevents many from seeing that they already are enough.