It was my father who could do no wrong. So I didn't think of it as, oh, look, my father's a violent man.

I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer - its dust and lowering skies.

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race - scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct... it has a social function, racism.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.

Give while your hands are warm

Although I regularly convince myself otherwise, because I aim at something doesn’t necessarily mean I have a target.

If you can only believe, God will restore your life and the lives of others around you

When you have a pipe salesman with a business called Macabee Pipes, I'd say you've got your tongue planted firmly in your cheek.

How sickly grow, How pale, the plants in those ill-fated vales That, circled round with the gigantic heap Of mountains, never felt, nor ever hope To feel, the genial vigor of the sun!

Only a fool would let his enemy teach his children.

There is something more - the spirit, or the soul. I think that that quality encourages our courtesy and care and our minds. And mercy, and identity.

Inflation, being a fraudulent invasion of property, could not take place on the free market.

That sort of fundamentalism which treats possession of private property not as a desirable economic and personal asset but as a condition of liberty is a form of primitive religion.

Suffering is a privilege. It moves us toward thinking of essential things and shakes us out of complacency. Calamity cracks you open, moves you to change your ways.