So much inspires me. People living their lives with courage, beauty of all kinds, nature in all its aspects, people I love and people I hardly know, and, of course, other poets.

Allow yourself to release the emotions you have struggled all your life to contain.

There's a part of every living thing that wants to become itself: the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one.That is spirituality.

There is a comfort in knowing that you don’t have to pretend anymore, that you are going to do everything within your power to heal.

What would people look like if we could see them as they are, soaked in honey, stung and swollen, reckless, pinned against time?

It's impossible to feel good about yourself if you are doing things that you aren't proud of. . . . It's essential that you . . . [do] things you can respect and admire.

I live in Santa Cruz. I moved here in 1974 and couldn't leave.

Everyone has the right to tell the truth about her own life.

Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you I will love you, again.

Poetry is the most intimate of all writing. I want to speak first from me to myself and then from me to you.

If you’ve managed to do one good thing, the ocean doesn’t care. But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth, the earth, ever so slightly, fell toward the apple as well.

Love is in your heart. If you search deeply you will find it.

The greatest act of courage is to be and to own all of who you are — without apology, without excuses, without masks to cover the truth of who you are.

Sometimes life is a series of obstacles, a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes, she realizes suddenly, it is simply a matter of blind faith.

I try each day, each month, each year to become a better and better person and to be good to the people I love and let them know how much I appreciate them.

Life is really about a spiritual unfolding that is personal and enchanting - an unfolding that no science or philosophy or religion has yet fully clarified.

Anybody not wearing a two-million sun block is gonna have a pretty bad day.

I think, life is miserable.

Quing-Jao: I am a slave to the gods, and I rejoice in it. Jane: A slave who rejoices is a slave indeed.

She accepted it from then on. Books liked her. Books wanted to look after her.

I go out and look for a good story to tell and if I like it enough and I decide to direct it, I become dangerously involved in becoming a part of that story.