Harm can come about without will or action. But will and action can avert harm.

I acquired a hunger for fairy tales in the dark days of blackout and blitz in the Second World War.

What literature can and should do is change the people who teach the people who don't read the books.

No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.

Art does not exist for politics, or for instruction- it exists primarily for pleasure, or it is nothing.

Things are not what they seem.

I think the names of colors are at the edge, between where language fails and where it's at its most powerful.

I worry about anthropomorphism as a form of self-deception. (The Christian religion is an anthropomorphic account of the universe.)

Narration is as much a part of human nature as breath and the circulation of the blood.

I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is.

He felt changed, but there was no one to tell.

Kindness alchemizes the soul, and a sweeter, richer life is the delicious result.

Nonetheless, I know where I'm coming from, I've got an idea on where I'm going, And with the way things are going, I'm just glad to be me.

Wholeness is birthed through vulnerability and sensitivity, which is often conceived in brokenness. Jesus taught me this.

If someone from the government tries to put his hands on your money... run away as fast as you can and tell the nearest conservative.

Somebody who should have been born is gone. Yes, woman, such logic will lead to loss without death. Or say what you meant, you coward . . . this baby that I bleed.

Do not give way to lowness while you are young. Rise up on the strength of God and resolve to conquer.

Everything changes. The more I try to hold on to the moment, the more it slips through my fingers.

Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.

But to say that Sarah Palin and the tea party movement is responsible for vandalism or threats is just a way to dismiss the American people and, and their dissatisfaction with this health care bill.

But you make me sing like a guitar humming . . .