Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow up, and they work with a sorrow upon them. It's duty.

it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

I don't ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.

You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read.

Very often we sit back thinking good things will happen, knowing that good things take time and hoping that someone else will do it. The world needs us!

When I don't write, I feel my world shrink. I lose my fire, my color.

What Iran wants and what North Korea wants is respect.

I think a composer is always interested in his last work.

Misfortune is never invited. And it comes and sits at the table without permission and it eats, leaving nothing but bones.

If you are facing a difficult task don’t put it off. If you do it will just keep tormenting you.

In college, before video games, we would amuse ourselves by posing programming exercises.

Thank goodness I've saved my money.

For the wretched one night is like a thousand; for someone faring well death is just one more night.