For me a true poem is on the way when I begin to be haunted, when it seems as if I were being asked an inescapable question by an angel with whom I must wrestle to get at the answer.

We are all jellyfish, too pitiful and too afraid of being disliked to be honest.

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.

Without darkness, nothing comes to birth, As without light, nothing flowers.

What is destructive is impatience, haste, expecting too much too fast.

We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.

The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind.

The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.

There are some griefs so loud/They could bring down the sky/And there are griefs so still/None knows how deep they lie.

A house that does not have one warm, comfy chair in it is soulless.

It is, I assume, quite easy to wither into old age, and hard to grow into it.

He saw the Constitution as the vehicle to keep ecumenical passions in check.

You are, madame, so perfectly armoured, so completely sure of yourself.''Now I wonder, if I am to take that as a compliment?''It is, perhaps, a warning--not to treat life with arrogance.

It wasn't long after the discovery of modern anesthesia that people began to die of it.

If there is a soul, it is a mistake to believe that it is given to us fully created. It is created here, throughout a whole life. And living is nothing else but that long and painful bringing forth.

If Sun were to hand the management of Java over to a committee of monkeys, would it be more successful?

The highest type of meditation is done in silence. In silence there are no mantras. Mantras are not essential, but they can be very helpful.

Manhattan... capital of the 20th century, a city that has fascinated me for more than three decades.

If you push too much for somebody that everyone knows is your friend, and that you've worked with before, it can backfire.

What I want people to take from this is that it isn't simple. People judge you, people tell you what you should do. You do the best you can.

The reason the Democrats are so intent on passing a stem-cell bill is they're depending on the research to grow themselves a spine.