Art invites us to know beauty and to solicit it, summon it, from even the most tragic of circumstances.

I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer - its dust and lowering skies.

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race - scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct... it has a social function, racism.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.

The sharp knife of a short life, wellI've had, just enough time.

For some it is harder to wake up to the truth of life than it is to fall into the sleep of death

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.

I'm pretty earthy; I nursed forever because I liked it and my kids liked it, but at the same time I'm very laissez-faire about stuff like bedtimes and food.

Animals hear about death for the first time when they die.

The best educated human being is the one who understands most about the life in which he is placed.

A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.

I had a major surgery, a major abdominal surgery, and a mass was removed from my pelvic area, and I do have some more recovery to do. But everything seems to be fine.

If you can wait and not be tired of waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies. Or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.

If you want people to listen to you, then be willing to listen to them.