Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity.

We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.

The past empowers the present, and the sweeping footsteps leading to this present mark the pathways to the future.

The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.

What would it be like to have not only color vision but culture vision, the ability to see the multiple worlds of others.

There are few things as toxic as a bad metaphor. You can't think without metaphors.

As you get up in the morning, as you make decisions, as you spend money, make friends, make commitments, you are creating a piece of art called your life.

When parents die, all of the partings of the past are reevoked with the realization that this time they will not return.

The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.

Worlds can be found by a child and an adult bending down and looking together under the grass stems or at the skittering crabs in a tidal pool.

Goals too clearly defined can become blinkers.

Maturity refers to having a sound understanding of basics and making a fair judgment.

You've been my inspiration, through the lies you were the truth. My world is a better place because of you.

Let us be thankful that there is no court by which we can be excluded from our share in the inheritance of the great poets of all ages and countries, to which our simple humanity entitles us.

My favorite is always the book that I'm currently reading.

The best title of the [professing] church of God today, in my judgment, is 'Unbelieving Believers.'

True, we must dare look things in the face before we dare think, speak, act, or assume responsibility. If we dare not even look, what else are we good for?

It is not a virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue, when we are led to the performance of duty by pleasure as its recompense.

In the theater, as an actor, you're welcoming people into your house.

He loves his bonds who, when the first are broke, Submits his neck into a second yoke.

We can't control the world, but we can control our reactions to it.