Outside sleep's open window, between the drops of rain, history is writing a recipe book for every earthly pain.

I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort where we overlap.

God forbid you be an ugly girl, 'course too pretty is also your doom, 'cause everyone harbors a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room.

They can call me crazy if I fail, all the chance that I need, is one-in-a-million and they can call me brilliant if I succeed.

One of my rules is: Never TRY to do anything. Just do it.

Every time I say something they find hard to hear, they chalk it up to my anger, and never to their own fear.

Some people wear their heart up on their sleeve. I wear mine underneath my right pant leg, strapped to my boot.

We are wise women, we are giggling girls. We both carry a smile to show when we're pleased, we both carry a switchblade in our sleeves.

We are taught to view pain as an enemy, not a teacher. But pain is the right hand of growth and transformation. Pain is in the history of all human wisdom.

Patriarchy is like the elephant in the room that we don't talk about, but how could it not affect the planet radically when it's the superstructure of human society?

I wonder what you look like under your t-shirt. I wonder what you sound like when you're not wearing words. I wonder what we have when we're not pretending.

Nothing is more prejudicial to war than talk.

You can learn a little bit from everybody, so you should be able to work a bit with everybody.

And takin' a bath in the creek. That's the stuff that really made it worthwhile. Anybody can stay in a motel.

Worship the music, not the musicians.

She had the revelation one Sunday that while the other instruments played for everyone the violen played for her alone .

Playwrights are the most gregarious writers - to get our work done, we need actors, directors, set designers.

I just wanted to tell the story of a bunch of musicians who had never had their story told before. There's no preaching or theorizing.

Death pays all debts.

I suggest to you that increasing the size of America's economic pie - which can be achieved only if everybody has a seat at the table - is the most important challenge facing our country today.