In the interstices of language lie powerful secrets of the culture.

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.

If you happen to be one of the people who has a split zygomaticus major muscle, where the lower part of it is tethered to the overlying skin, this will create a dimple in your cheek when you smile.

I think sometimes by portraying our lives as being too perfect, as being too balanced, we're actually selling younger women a bill of goods that's not true.

I was trying to do the same thing that I always do which is make an interesting record

Gardening is akin to writing stories. No experience could have taught me more about grief or flowers, about achieving survival by going, your fingers in the ground, the limit of physical exhaustion.

It's not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it.

Reason is always weak where prejudice is strong.

I had to find a relationship with someone who could simultaneously make me grow up and keep me forever young.

I'm only a stupid filmmaker.

I'm still learning. Hopefully I can keep getting better, and not stop where I am now.

Some of my songs I don't do on tour because they don't work well live.