If Rumi is the most-read poet in America today, Coleman Barks is in good part responsible. His ear for the truly divine madness in Rumi’s poetry is really remarkable.

The most powerful moral influence is example.

If we take the world’s enduring religions at their best, we discover the distilled wisdom of the human race.

I am profoundly moved and persuaded by the near-death experience.

All -isms end up in schisms.

We all carry it within us: supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted, and cannot be destroyed.

God is defined by Jesus but not confined to Jesus.

The object of pilgrimage is not rest and recreation – to get away from it all. To set out on a pilgrimage is to throw down a challenge to everyday life.

At the center of the religious life is a peculiar kind of joy, the prospect of a happy ending that blossoms from necessarily painful ordeals, the promise of human difficulties embraced and overcome.

Beware of the differences that blind us to the unity that binds us.

Poetry is a special use of language that opens onto the real. The business of the poet is truth telling, which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he or she was a poet.

Dream while others are sleeping. Dare while others are wishing. Do while others are talking. Deliver while others are quitting.

Music is pretty much the lifestyle, not the music itself. The lifestyle really pulled me off the street. Made me want to do something organized and positive.

I'm a Baltimore Ravens fan and I'm a Baltimore Orioles fan. I have them tattooed on me.

The true warrior isn't immune to fear. She fights in spite of it.

Oh ye of little faith. Not for IYD... But you didn't even try.

Mortality: not acquittal but a series of postponements is what we hope for.

Since I was 15 I've felt kinda like... an old man.

I want to see people dance, and I would like to guess what kind of people they are. I don't want to know the recipe for their pasta.

Stories are amazing and powerful because they can resonate with people depending on their needs and experiences and speak truths we need to hear in that moment in time.

The writer's only responsibility is to his art...If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies.