Art is the attention we pay to the wholeness of the world.

Sometimes when reading Goethe I have the paralyzing suspicion that he is trying to be funny.

The poet is at the edge of our consciousness of the world, finding beyond the suspected nothingness which we imagine limits our perception another acre or so of being worth our venturing upon.

Art is always the replacement of indifference by attention.

Imagination is like the drunk man who lost his watch and must get drunk again to find it.

We will always return to the private and inviolable act of reading as our culture's way of developing an individual.

I’ve carved the puppet, and I manipulate the strings, but while it’s on stage, the show belongs to the puppet.

In curved Einsteinian space we are at all times, technically, looking at the back of our own head.

A work of art is a form that articulates forces, making them intelligible.

Unless the work of art has wholly exhausted its makers attention, it fails. This is why works of great significance are demanding and why they are infinitely rewarding.

I never intended to be a teacher. I just like going to school and learning things.

The earth is neither fabulous nor paradisal. And therefore it is not hell.

It is not what you give your friend but what you are willing to give him that determines the quality of your friendship.

When I met Jean I felt God reach down out of the sky pull my hair and say "This one dummy."

The travel and tourism industry, it's just a huge part of our economy.

A hero is someone right who doesn't change.

We all claim to worship the same God, so why don't we fellowship together? ... The only thing that keeps us from fellowshiping together are the church buildings, the organizations.

I had to keep on acting deaf if i wanted to hear at all.

Happiness, in the ancient, noble sense, means self-fulfillment—and is given to those who use to the fullest whatever talents God … bestowed upon them.

And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin is pride that apes humility.

Gentle souls! You play your love on the violin. The crude ones play it on the drums violently. But can you turn yourselves inside out, like me And become just two lips entirely?