Prune the ill branches so that a tree grows.Prune the dilapidated buildings so that a city flourishes.

Freedom can be an acquired taste for those who have never savored it.

Unless you break free from the shackles of beauty as dictated by the media and society, true beauty will be elusive.

Is a tree any less beautiful because it has lost a limb?

History and beauty lie in the baroque wrinkles of old cathedrals. mosques, synagogues, temples and faces whose stories are told without a single word.

The candy colored coral snake.The iridescent blue-ringed octopus.Décolletage.Beware of conspicuous beauty.Its venom can be deadly.

She walks in beauty.I am trampled by it.She swims in beauty.I drown in it.

Roll in the snow.Shower in the rain.Bask in the sun.Weatherproof your soul.

Hard and dry, a chickpea is inedible.Hard and dry, a heart is unlovable.Presoak it in dance, music and art.

Beholdthe azure sea in front of you, the turquoise sky above you, the amber mountain beneath your feet, and the golden daisy in your hands.How are you not the richest person on earth?

Start a rumor aboutpeace taking over, love being the new black, and compassion going viral.

I think it's important for me to keep my childhood friends so that later on someone can appreciate how far I've come.

Riches like glory or health have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleased to lend them.

The pressure of public opinion is like the pressure of the atmosphere you can't see it - but all the same it is sixteen pounds to the square inch.

What was I saying? An Egyptian king Once touched long fingers, which are not anything.

Was I the only woman in the world who, at my age - and after a lifetime of quite rampant independence - still did not quite feel grown up?

I think the press, which arguably was cowed by the (Bush) administration in the run-up to the war with Iraq, was certainly not cowed in covering the aftermath of Katrina.

When we give ourselves in love we become our most vulnerable. We are never safe. We become open to disappointment and hurt.

Never be ashamed of passion. If you are strongly sexed, you are richly endowed.

I always thought I was different.

Hunger is a powerful incentive to introspection.