Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill, of things unknown, but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom.

When things were very bad his soul just crawled behind his heart and curled up and went to sleep

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.

I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.

Language is man's way of communicating with his fellow man and it is language alone which separates him from the lower animals.

Few, if any, survive their teens.

It may be enough, however, to have it said that we survive in exact relationship to the dedication of our poets (include preachers, musicians, and blues singers).

For every guy who loves being a dad, there’s another who realizes too late that he’s created something his wife loves more than him.

The world isn’t the place we are told to live in. It is another place entirely. We have both more choice, and less, than we are supposed to have.

Don't you get the idea I'm one of those goddam radicals. Don't get the idea I'm knocking the American system.

It is, Sir, as I have said, a small College, And yet, there are those who love it.

It is the lot of man but once to die.

I wouldn't be myself if I weren't always trying to be someone else. I only have so much time on this earth and I want to be as many people as possible.

Up in this air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.

One of the reasons I picked Pacifica was because, for a lot of classes and for your thesis, you could do artwork because of the Jungian slant of it all, and that really called to me.

I am a musical-theater nut. When the lyrics, orchestration, and performance all come together just right, I come alive and can feel every cell in my body.

If you listen to one project and think that's everything I do, you're completely wrong.