'Swan, ' by Mary Oliver. Poems and prose. Reading from this book is as if visiting a very wise friend. There is wisdom and welcoming kindness on every page.

I was given a stethoscope in a child's 'doctor's bag' at about age six and I loved it! One could hear the heart beating through that plastic toy.

Pigeon-holes are only comfortable for pigeons.

Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself.

I am grateful that my horizons were not narrowed at the outset.

My arias make me take off as if I were on a trampoline.

It is still more likely that a woman's power would be seen as aggression, and a man's power would be seen as assertion.

There's no anger ever in a spiritual. There's always the dream of a hope of a better day coming. That God understands the troubles that I'm experiencing.

There has never been a time when I was not committed to, involved in, or caring of, the social and political issues of my world.

One needs more than ambition and talent to make a success of anything, really. There must be love and a vocation.

I want to sing more in Spanish. I want to sing the songs of Granados; the songs of Montsalvatge. To do things that truly I've not done before.

Realism is the light that shines between change and challenge.

It's harder and harder to make a well-done romantic comedy these days because the conventions have been so played out.

My co-workers expect me to be late and temperamental.

If there were 10,000 U.S. forces ashore [in Lebanon], authorized to move about, there would be less risk to American lives than there is with an immobile force of 1,300.

My job is to help people see what I see. If it's of value, fine. And, if it's not of value, then at least I've done what I can do.

We get on the bandwagon in all sorts of ways - you know minor ways and major ways - like what you've just encountered which isn't censorship exactly, it was something sort of uglier in a way.

Don’t let people’s compliments go to your head and don’t let their criticisms go to your heart.

I can see how some people get sentimental about how we used to do things in 'the good old days' but in a way I just think they are being nostalgic for the way they were brought up.

What probing deep Has ever solved the mystery of sleep?

Paul was Nero's prisoner, but Nero was much more God's.