Even stone can be worn down with enough rain.

Never give up; for even rivers someday wash dams away.

We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.

By the time we arrived, as evening was approaching, I felt as sore as a rock must feel when the waterfall has pounded on it all day long.

I worried she might spend an afternoon chatting with me about the sights and then wish me best of luck.

After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom.

I don't think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it.

We don't become geisha because we want our lives to be happy; we become geisha because we have no choice.

At that moment, beauty itself struck me as a kind of painful melancholy.

A tree may look as beautiful as ever; but when you notice the insects infesting it, and the tips of the branches that are brown from disease, even the trunk seems to lose some of its magnificence.

If you aren't the woman I think you are, then this isn't the world I thought it was.

[W]e are none of us very good at silence. It says too much.

I got a safe full of cherries 'cause I pop it and lock it.

I was trapped in admiration for what I had once admired, as a fly in amber remains the captive of some long-vanished pine.

The circumstances of your life have uniquely qualified you to make a contribution. And if you don't make that contribution, nobody else can make it.

The first glance from the eyes of the beloved is like the spirit that moved upon the face of the waters, giving birth to heaven and earth.

Americans have a severe disease - worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex.

Protecting the integrity of every vote cast is among the most important duties I have as governor.

Bob Barr is not crazy enough for my taste.

If everybody would just stop talking, my job would be a lot easier.