I don't like novels that tie everything up in a plot-y way. I always think that's not really true of life, particularly of people in power.

People went through life like well handled jugs, collecting chips and scrapes and stains from wear and tear, from holding and pouring life.

You’ve been wondering lately when the moment is that somebody is truly lost to you.

Those partial to drink were hiding faults and dishonesty. They were sloppy souls, even the ones with pleasant manners and fine noses.

Of all the conditions we experience, solitude is perhaps the most misunderstood.

I'll tell you this, lad: A tattoo says more of a fellow looking at it than it can do of the man who's got it on his back.

The man had added to his body in a way that was brave and timeless and beyond adornment.

You didn’t understand what he was saying, until he kissed you. It was a kiss of such complicity, of such uncomplicated sympathy, that you felt for the first time not alone in your suffering.

All innocent mechanisms are muddied up with experience. Children become less and less translucent. Layers of guile and suspicion grow. It's the law of paternal disenchantments.

This is your first and final chance, your one and only biography.

A month in and it seemed to CY that he was an explorer summiting the foothill of an a bizarre and primitive island.

Keep your maximum focus on the present and a little planning ahead because without the present there is no future

When people try to rain on your parade, ...pee on theirs

I have my own people that make my clothes, because it's hard for me to find stuff that fits.

Care, but don't be pushy! Don't preach about enlightenment to people who don't really want to hear about it.

The primary battle which religion must fight today is the battle to justify its own existence.

Why do you put your self esteem in the hands of complete strangers?

But I love to feel events overlapping each other, crawling over one another like wet crabs in a basket

You have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of democracy, Islamic social justice and the equality of manhood in your own native soil.

I put my head down and charge.

Poetry in love is no more to be avoided than jealousy.