Let my life as Poet begin. I want the life of the Poet. I have labored for over twelve years, one thousand pages of prose. Now, I want the easiness of poetry. The brevity of the poem.

In a time of destruction, create something.

In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.

A story can take you through a whole process of searching, seeking, confronting, through conflicts, and then to a resolution. As the storyteller and the listener, we go through a story together.

The work of preservation demands that the feelings playing about in one's guts not be turned into action. Just watch their passing like cherry blossoms.

I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.

We're all under the same sky and walk the same earth; we're alive together during the same moment.

To me success means effectiveness in the world, that I am able to carry my ideas and values into the world--that I am able to change it in positive ways.

Do the right thing by whoever crosses your path. Those coincidental people are your people.

I may be ugly and clumsy, but one thing I'm not, I'm not retarded.

The images of peace are ephemeral. The language of peace is subtle. The reasons for peace, the definitions of peace, the very idea of peace have to be invented, and invented again

Your positive thoughts are both the prayer, and the answer to your prayer.

Death followed by eternity the worst of both worlds. It is a terrible thought.

The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.

Big banks have long had private equity divisions that put up capital for deals too complex or risky for individual shareholders to finance.

One of the things I love about summer is that you can wear a bikini top and put something over it and it kind of just always looks a little beach-ready, which I think is very fun.

The future will be determined in part by happenings that it is impossible to foresee; it will also be influenced by trends that are now existent and observable.

The self is no mystery, the mystery is / That there is something for us to stand on

One didn't issue instructions to comets. Grown children did what they had to do, and parents could only grit their teeth and watch and pray for them to get through it.

Sunk in the grass of an empty lot on a spring Saturday, I split the stems of milkweed and thought about ants and peach pits and death and where the world went when I closed my eyes.