Literature is not a picture of life, but is a separate experience with its own kind of flow and enhancement.

Once we have tasted far streams, touched the gold, found some limit beyond the waterfall, a season changes and we come back changed but safe, quiet, grateful.

Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.

I embrace emerging experience, I participate in discovery. I am a butterfly. I am not a butterfly collector. I want the experience of the butterfly.

I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.

There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.

You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about

Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.

Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.

...What you fear will not go away; it will take you into yourself and bless you and keep you. That's the world, and we all live there.

A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

How good would a Good Samaritan be, if a Good Samaritan would only intend to do good?

I was distressed that after 9/11, when the United States was attacked by terrorists, the United States' response was to attack Afghanistan, where some of the terrorists had been.

Hatred is a death wish for the hated, not a life wish for anything else.

He [Earl Scruggs] was really cool because he was very quiet, and he wouldn't say much, but then he would come out with a quip that was like so perfect and so brilliant, very smart.

I've heard the call. I believe God wants me to run for president.

It's a very, very rare moment when another actor hurts you. I mean, that's not normal.

I would never not work on the part without it playing. That's what being an actor is. You use everything that's influenced you to help you get out of yourself or be more creative.

Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. Not one. This is a deal breaker.

I was the oldest child, and both my parents worked, so I had a great deal of responsibility from a very young age.