No one questions the fact that verbal language has to be learned, but the commonplaceness of visual experience betrays art; people tend to assume that, because they can see, they can see art.

Love ... is the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery.

I never decided at all to be an artist; being an artist seems to have happened to me.

The most demanding part of living a lifetime as an artist is the strict discipline of forcing oneself to work steadfastly along the nerve of one's own intimate sensitivity.

Artists have no choice but to express their lives.

Art comes into the highest part of the mind, that with which we can know the presence of God.

I've struggled all my life to get maximum meaning in the simplest possible form.

the knowledge of personal failure ... is the invaluable predicate of all honest compassion.

I have no home but me.

I have slowly come to realize that a family is composed of people who are teaching one another.

There's a small still center into which conception can arrive. And when it arrives, you make it welcome with your experience.

Every morning you are younger than you will ever be. Enjoy the day.

Honor doesn’t revise according to company just as integrity doesn’t diminish due to circumstance.

What is it that distinguishes you and me from the lower animals - from the beasts? More, I say, than anything else, human sympathy - human sympathy.

I like poetry when I don't quite understand why I like it. Poetry isn't just a question of wrapping something up and giving it to someone else to unwrap. It just doesn't work like that.

Generosity isn't an act. It's a way of life.

The simple lack of her is more to me than others' presence.

When fear seizes, change what you are doing. You are doing something wrong.

Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy-they're given after all. Choices can be hard.

Move, but don't move the way fear makes you move.

I think I'm more approachable with long hair. When it's short, I come across as being artsy and weird.