I know I can walk through the world, along the shore or under the trees, with my mind filled with things of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can't really call being alive.

it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

I don't ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.

You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

Before and after you do your best, know it that you must rely on God. Your best - no matter how great - is nothing if you minus God from the equation.

hark, now hear the sailors cry, smell the sea, and feel the sky let your soul & spirit fly, into the mystic...

Be who you are. Do what you can. Embrace the journey.

I think Joe [Madison] is right. What we have to do is call him out on every one of these things and then maybe somebody will take the sweet machine away from him.

All the high-tone, big-time folks would say, 'Isn't it wonderful how these untrained, primitive musicians can pick up all the latest songs instantly without being able to read music?

There are certain standards, like the protection of minorities and the improvement in their lives that have to be improved now.

Boredom turns to panic if my beloved leaves before the usual time.

Oh, I was super serious about practicing and rudiments, and still am. I still have all my books.

Provocation polio. That is the truth about those outbreaks of polio. And I offer a well considered personal opinion that polio is a man made disease.

And presently I was driving through the drizzle of the dying day, with the windshield wipers in full action but unable to cope with my tears.