She wanted to hold foreign syllables like mints on her tongue until they dissolved into fluency.

We wear clothes, and speak, and create civilizations, and believe we are more than wolves. But inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.

She wouldn't climb out of the bed for her sister, but she had climbed into a crater. She wouldn't cross a room, but she had crossed a continent.

Nothing, she now knew, could be defined in exclusion, and every bug, pencil, and grass blade was a dictionary in itself, requiring the definitions of all things to fulfill its own.

Then Brezhnev grabbed the wheel of power and captained the country with the exploratory heart of a municipal bus driver.

No one can take what's inside your head once it's there.

You will have the last word.' 'Your name will be that word.

She felt as buoyantly patriotic as her Chechen classmates who could trace their family trees back to the acorns

Her mother stared in quiet awe of this more artful rearrangement of her genetic code, and slipped into a contentedness that usually appeared only after the red wine had fallen below the bottle label.

Time became more important the closer to death one was, so an extra few hours to make peace with the world were worth more than years.

But inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.

Dream with all of your mind.Work with all of your heart.Persevere with all of your strength.Succeed with all of your soul.

There can be no justification for choosing any part of that which one knows to be evil.

People do what they think works for them, but the sport is about instinct, movement, balance, power... it's too animalistic to get rigid about your training.

And there I was, pretty as heck, brown eyes, a few freckles, fashion challenged, and a bad attitude. Max II.

I'm kind of a one-note at a time, one finger keyboard player.

Opportunities do not float like clouds in the sky. They're attached to people. If you're looking for an opportunity, you're really looking for a person.

Familiarity breeds complacency.

When I first set out to ruin SNL, I didn't think anyone would notice, but I persevered because - like you trying to do a nine-piece jigsaw puzzle - it was a labour of love.

A good friend is like a four-leaf clover; hard to find and lucky to have.

I have been maturing as a teacher.