In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.

it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

I don't ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.

Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn.

Strange, what the heart can bear. It can carry grief beyond measure. It can bear a weight that is too great to speak of. But a heart can't bear the world. It has its limits...

It is more than love, barely less than madness. It’s never close enough.

When conscious activity is wholly concentrated on some one definite purpose, the ultimate result, for most people, is lack of balance accompanied by some form of nervous disorder.

Those who understand the true nature of humanity are always loners.

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is.

The West can't come up with anything to deal with Moscow, except appeasement.

I'll say things that are serious and put them in a joke form so people can enjoy them. We laugh to keep from crying.

How many times we have picked up in the streets human beings who had been living like animals and were longing to die like angels!

His flesh took paleness from his bones.