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.

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.

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?

History is not another name for the past, as many people imply. It is the name for stories about the past.

Abstract is a journey through both my mind and my past.

We are all human and I want to relate that message to all people.

Don't hang out in your old neighborhood with your new cars and flash it to guys who don't have that. The only thing you're doing is making 'em hate.

Will I die slain like my King by a terrorist? Will my woman be Coretta, take my name and cherish it? Or will she Jackie O., drop the Kennedy, remarry it?

You have to be as fully prepared for the dull game as you are for the great game, or else you won't be prepared for the great one.

Don't always come when you're called.

We do not think it necessary to prove that a quack medicine is poison; let the vender prove it to be sanative.

Selling millions of records is great, but at the end of the day it really doesn't bring peace.

Nature has made a pebble and a female. The lapidary makes the diamond, and the lover makes the woman.