I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.

There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.

All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself.

A good poem is like a bouillon cube. It's concentrated and it nourishes you when you need it.

Courage has nothing to do with our determination to be great. It has to do with what we decide in that moment when we are called upon to be more.

Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.

We should always do something that makes us feel like a child again. Keep learning, no matter what it is.

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.

I've always been intrigued by the way history works, the way we decide what is mentioned.

Sometimes a word is found so right it trembles at the slightest explanation.

You have to imagine it possible before you can see something. You can have the evidence right in front of you, but if you can't imagine something that has never existed before, it's impossible.

... Papa's always had the ability to remember the good things and let the bad ones go." "Not a bad ability.""... I'm not sure. I think we have to remember it all before we can forgive it.

As we grow older, it becomes difficult to just believe. It's not that we don't want to, but too much has happened and we can't.

They certainly give very strange names to diseases.

She say, Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show.

The Russians have fixed world chess.

I believe my most important job is being there when you need help.

No great question will ever be settled in dollars and cents. Great questions must be settled on moral grounds and the tests of what makes free men.

We are pantheists as natural scientists, polytheists as poets, and monotheists as moral beings.

There is no gravity in the Planet of Love; everything floats in the air.

Nothing ruins your day more than getting a bad review.