I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it.

I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer - its dust and lowering skies.

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race - scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct... it has a social function, racism.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.

That it may be the only thing the darkness makes clearer: who really matters is whoever you're most desperate to see.

You could bounce rocks off her pride.

Righteous is the one who was able to demonstrate compassion in face of human suffering.

It doesn't matter if you feel sexy if you don't look sexy.

Time is an amazing equalizer. I think if you stay true to yourself and keep moving forward, things come around.

Getting old is not for sissies, kid.

The difference between work and play is only a matter of attitude. Work, fully done, is play.

The world is full of beautiful girls. But they're not Angelina Jolie. She's fun, honest, intelligent, gorgeous and divinely talented. She brings a hell of a lot to the party.

Let brisker youths their active nerves prepare Fit their light silken wings and skim the buxom air.

The truth knocks on the door and you say, go away, I'm looking for the truth, and it goes away. Puzzling.