Pedagogically, we need definitions and borders. They help us get our heads around what we're talking about.

The whole movement of an essay is propelled by a fundamentally human impulse to want to figure things out.

Inclusiveness isn't what I want to push back against. The obsession with facts is.

In some ways we want definitions that can help protect our own interpretations of the genre.

An essay is something that tracks the evolution of a human mind.

I think that in a lot of readers' minds the essay is a lot more utilitarian than it is art.

What I didn't realize when I was in school and what I suspect a lot of young writers today don't get either is that you have to create the world that you want to exist in as an artist.

Sometimes the essay is where we end up when everything that we know must change.

I know it sounds silly, but disrespecting a dead writer by sitting in a chair that probably never belonged to him still felt like a risk to me. So I chickened out.

I thought that I wasn't an essayist because I just didn't see myself in a lot of the essays that were popular at the time. That's why I joined the poetry program in grad school.

A risk is something that feels risky to the person who's taking it.

In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of thecat, although in this case there were three determinate states the catcould be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.

The Leader who sets a vision and encourages others to to take ownership in their future will obtain the greatest reward of overall performance resulting in success.~bns~

To remain a man in today's world, one must have not only unfailing energy and unwavering intensity, one must also have a little luck.

That's one of the fun things...That's your excuse for dressing up. You can get picked on and go, 'Oh well I'm in a band'.

I've always thought you've got to believe in luck to get it.

How many lives do you need to live before you fine someone worth dying for?

The strength of the church is not the strength of its institutions but the authenticity of its witness.

Don’t accept the world as it is. Dream of what the world could be - and then help make it happen.

Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

There are two things you should never waste your time on: things that don't matter and people that think you don't matter.