He said that if culture is a house, then language was the key to the front door; to all the rooms inside. Without it, he said, you ended up wayward, without a proper home or a legitimate identity.

Attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun.

hills that stand soft and a sky that stands high and blue, and the sun setting behind a windmill, and always, always, hazy strings of mountains that fall and fall away on the horizon.

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.

And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.

Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.

But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.

The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.

If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions.

Creativity is the art and science of expressing inner beauty.

Little with love is better than much without love.

Look at the language. If a scientist delivers the simple, unconditional, absolutely certain statements that politicians and journalists want, he is talking as an activist, not a scientist.

Be good, sweet maid, and don't forget that this involves being as clever as you can.

I literally don't know what I'm going to do next. That's successful.

You can't sing with a closed heart. You just can't do it. And if you try, as soon as you start singing, your heart just naturally opens more and more.

It is the coward who fawns upon those above him. It is the coward who is insolent whenever he dares be so.

Success is a journey, not a destination. It requires constant effort, vigilance and reevaluation.

There is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behavior yield to the energy of the individual.