He said you were the only one who was bitter about S.'s suicide and the only one who really forgave him for it. The rest of us, he said, were outwardly unbitter and inwardly unforgiving.

And I can't be running back and fourth forever between grief and high delight.

He seemed unaware of the messiness of the arrangement.

I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting.

I don't know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn't make you happy.

An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.

We are, all four of us, blood relatives, and we speak a kind of esoteric, family language, a sort of semantic geometry in which the shortest distance between any two points is a fullish circle.

She was not one for emptying her face of expression.

You don't know how to talk to people you don't like. Don't love, really. You can't live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes.

But I was afraid of the questions (much more than the accusations) you might both put to me.

I didn't want any degrees if all the ill-read literates and radio announcers and pedagogical dummies I knew had them by the peck.

We won't let poverty kill educational access & opportunities. We'll kill poverty through education.

If you desire ease, forsake learning.

Before we can speak God's message, we must learn to listen. The opened ear comes before the opened mouth.

Very few worries can stand against the influence of a good long walk ... How many petty annoyances have I thus walked away!

Writing isn't just on the page; it's voices in the reader's head. Read what you write out loud to someone-anyone-and you will catch all kinds of things.

Sexy, to me, is the way you carry what you have. I have a big nose, but I rock it.

The lion is most handsome when looking for food.

The lesson from the smith and wesson is depressin'.

You cannot change the way you feel until you change the way you think because your thoughts will determine the way you feel.

Being both soft and strong is a combination very few have mastered.