Love dares the self to leave itself behind, to enter into poverty.

Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do.

One of the principle qualities of pain is that it demands an explanation.

To be running breathlessly, but not yet arrived, is itself delightful, a suspended moment of living hope.

The words we read and words we write never say exactly what we mean. The people we love are never just as we desire them. The two symbola never perfectly match. Eros is in between.

You remember too much," my mother said to me recently. "Why hold onto all that?" And I said, "where can I put it down?

Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.

Myths are stories about people who become too big for their lives temporarily, so that they crash into other lives or brush against gods. In crisis their souls are visible.

Under the seams runs the pain.

When I desire you a part of me is gone.

If your way of life is writing, then everything that happens becomes a sentence.

It takes courage to fail.

The onion is the truffle of the poor.

A tree is an incomprehensible mystery.

I have always loved solitude, a trait which tends to increase with age.

With Sleater-Kinney, we did a lot of improvisation in our live shows, and even our process of songwriting involved bringing in disparate parts and putting them together to form something cohesive.

It's hard to win awards if there are no roles.

One who practices jnana yoga has practiced the other yogas for many, many lifetimes.

Big government makes small citizens.

Love itself describes its own perfection. Be speechless and listen.

Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.