If you’ve managed to do one good thing, the ocean doesn’t care. But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth, the earth, ever so slightly, fell toward the apple as well.

Allow yourself to release the emotions you have struggled all your life to contain.

There's a part of every living thing that wants to become itself: the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one.That is spirituality.

There is a comfort in knowing that you don’t have to pretend anymore, that you are going to do everything within your power to heal.

What would people look like if we could see them as they are, soaked in honey, stung and swollen, reckless, pinned against time?

It's impossible to feel good about yourself if you are doing things that you aren't proud of. . . . It's essential that you . . . [do] things you can respect and admire.

I live in Santa Cruz. I moved here in 1974 and couldn't leave.

Everyone has the right to tell the truth about her own life.

Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you I will love you, again.

So much inspires me. People living their lives with courage, beauty of all kinds, nature in all its aspects, people I love and people I hardly know, and, of course, other poets.

Poetry is the most intimate of all writing. I want to speak first from me to myself and then from me to you.

It takes more distress and poison to kill someone who has peace of mind and loves life.

It's like driving your car. If you drive too fast on the highway, you will topple, so you better maintain your speed. Life is similar to that, and that's the way you have to control your head.

Life's a fight. It's a good fight of faith.

The way I feel is that there is a balance in my life between being alone and interacting with people, between Being and doing.

The flashbacks are parallel for me. You experience two storylines at the same time, and I'm not switching from one time to another.

Everyone in New York is fluid and thinking and inspiring each other.

I love playing. If it was down to just that, it would be utopia.

I can't help feeling that there is no beauty without hope, struggle, and conquest.

But maybe those things are like background noise if you’re from here. Maybe you have to experience this as a whole new place to appreciate it like I do.

The only important thing I have to say is that my father never fought against his country.