I think poets should work in the non-literary, non-academic world, get to know more than a workshop or a university.

The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.

Change is not a threat to your life, but an invitation to live.

There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.

My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.

We must use what we have to invent what we desire.

Courage is not defined by those who fought and did not fall, but by those who fought, fell and rose again.

The beauty of darkness is how it lets you see.

If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.

Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.

Language is power... Language can be used as a means of changing reality.

It was painful to have him so near, yet beyond my reach.

Growing up, I believed in miracles. I guess I don’t anymore.

If you are going to write, nothing will stop you, and if you are not going to write, nothing will make you.

A cup brimful of sweetness cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, no matter how suddenly jarred.

Too much of the animal disfigures the civilized human being, too much culture makes a sick animal.

Each generation of pilots hopes that they will leave their profession better off than they found it.

You go ahead. I'd rather not be shot out of a tube into a pool filled with a bunch of nine-year-olds' urine.

I don't do things for the response or for the controversy. I just live my life.

Every job requires a certain riding of a horse.

Spiritual advancement is measured by faithful obedience.