My father brought me a box of books once when I was about three and a half or four. I remember the carton they were in and the covers with illustrations by Newell C. Wyeth.

When you read to a child, when you put a book in a child's hands, you are bringing that child news of the infinitely varied nature of life. You are an awakener.

A good novel begins with a small question and ends with a bigger one.

The minute you become conscious that you are doing good, that's the minute you have to stop because from then on it's wrong.

To be human is to be in a story.

Families hold each other in an iron grip of definition. One must break the grip, somehow.

The language of labels is like paper money, issued irresponsibly, with nothing of intrinsic value behind it, that is, with no effort of the intelligence to see, to really apprehend.

Literature is the province of imagination, and stories, in whatever guise, are meditations on life.

People steal into one's consciousness and occupy what seems, in retrospect, to have been their place all along.

I was the goldfish that leapt out of the bowl.

Life is all getting used to what you're not used to.

America is hope. It is compassion. It is excellence. It is valor.

The true meaning of existence is disclosed in moments of living in the presence of God

Sanctions are a strong and agreed element of the West's response to Russia's aggression. It is puzzling to me that there is so much skepticism about the sanctions. I don't understand it.

Enlightenment is the complete awareness of life without mental modifications.

People attack Scientology, I never forget it, always even the score. People attack auditors, or staff, or organisations, or me. I never forget until the slate is clear.

In a way I'm almost more rueful about the notion of having a non-ideological Labour party than I am about the personality of Tony Blair.

Seriously. Thank you all. In that ring w/all of u watching was THE best place for me for a very long time. Thx for the memories.

I'm really grounded and quite hippie, wanting to nurture and have children and be quiet.

The more divided people of color are in a system of white supremacy/privilege, the weaker they will be, both individually and collectively.

I never realized that the blue sky I saw was not the soft, nurturing sky of spring, but the cold, chilling, lonely sky of winter