I felt suddenly cruel, like I´d told dmall children there was no tooth fairy, that it was just their Mom sneaking into their room after they went to bed.

She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.

The phoenix must burn to emerge.

I know it feels like you have all these options and when you make a decision, you lose a world of possibilities. But the reality is, until you make a decision, you have nothing at all.

Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In life, knowledge of poisons is essential. I've told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.

Their love as a dragonfly, skimming over echo park, stoppin to visit the lotus. Eating dreams and drinking blue sky.

How right that the body changed over time, becoming a gallery of scars, a canvas of experience, a testament to life and one's capacity to endure it.

It's such a liability to love another person.

Find someone who will tremble for your touch, someone whose fingers are a poem.

Memory is the fourth dimension to any landscape.

Beauty was empty as a gourd, vain as a parakeet. But it had power. It smelled of musk and oranges and made you close your eyes in a prayer.

The problem with religion, because it's been sheltered from criticism, is that it allows people to believe en masse what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation.

To the bachelor, the language of women is mystery. In those matters, a married man is already a scholar

Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.

We're going to have to let truth scream louder to our souls than the lies that have infected us.

Be as smart as you can, but remember that it is always better to be wise than to be smart.

More than just an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.

The blues is losing someone you love and not having enough money to immerse yourself in drink.

Self-respect governs morality: respect for others governs our behavior.

The only purpose of education is freedom; the only method is experience.

Man, that cat [Ornette Coleman] is nuts.