One could not pluck a flower without troubling a star.

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.

When the human mind exists in the light of reason and no more than reason, we may say with absolute certainty that Man and all that made him will be in that instant gone.

It has been said repeatedly that one can never, try as he will, get around to the front of the universe. Man is destined to see only its far side, to realize nature only in retreat.

If it should turn out that we have mishandled our own lives as several civilizations before us have done, it seems a pity that we should involve the violet and the tree frog in our departure.

The great artist, whether he be musician, painter, or poet, is known for this absolute unexpectedness.

It is a commonplace of all religious thought, even the most primitive, that the man seeking visions and insight must go apart from his fellows and love for a time in the wilderness.

The journey is difficult, immense. We will travel as far as we can, but we cannot in one lifetime see all that we would like to see or to learn all that we hunger to know.

Each one of us is a statistical impossibility around which hover a million other lives that were never destined to be born.

We cannot pluck a flower witout disturbing a star.

It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man.

Truth is straight like a line. Virtue is firm like a wall. Wisdom is tall like a mountain. Love is wide like an ocean.

Meat consumption is just as dangerous to public health as tobacco use... It's time we looked into holding the meat producers and fast-food outlets legally accountable.

You can only understand the present age when it is past.

Then wilt thou not be loath To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess A Paradise within thee, happier far.

To make what you have in your head, I think that's what directing is.

It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly.

Eternal life should be sought elsewhere, perhaps in the religious community, not politics.

Success is when the whole gets enlightened. When you become one with the whole, that's the real success.

I enjoy just being me. I don't need to be Queen Latifah, the brand, 24 hours a day.

There are no rules in writing. There are useful principles. Throw them away when they're not useful. But always know what you're throwing away.