The gift finds the man attractive who stands with an empty bowl he does not own.

But neither money nor machines can create. They shuttle tokens of energy, but they do not transform. A civilization based on them puts people out of touch with their creative powers.

Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.

A gift that cannot be given away ceases to be a gift. The spirit of a gift is kept alive by its constant donation.

An essential portion of any artist's labor is not creation so much as invocation

When we are moved by art we are grateful that the artist lived, grateful that he labored in the service of his gifts.

We are only alive to the degree that we can let ourselves be moved.

We forgive when we give up attachment to our wounds.

I think of a myth as a story that helps you explain all the different pieces of your life. In that broad sense, there is no way to live without mythology.

True citizens are not the audience of their government, nor its consumers; they are its makers.

Uncovering secrets is apocalyptic in the simple sense (the Greek root means ‘an uncovering’). In this case, it lifts the shame covers. It allows articulation to enter where silence once ruled.

This is why the oceans taste of salt. It is because of all the tears of mermaids for sailors who have died for their love. The oceans are salt with death and grief.

Tell your master that if there were as many devils at Worms as tiles on its roofs I would enter.

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.

Psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests.

If you can wiggle your toes with the mere flicker of an intention, why can't you reset your biological clock?

I can't imagine anybody disagrees with President Trump when he says, if we don't take care of our veterans, who are we really as a nation?

the people of one nation alone cannot save their own children; each holds the responsibility for the others' children.

Guess what this liberal would be all about? This liberal will be about socializing...uh, um...Would be about, basically, taking over, and the government running all of your companies.

This house better get cleaned up in six months. The swamp is going to have to be drained pretty quickly.

Whatever reforms are carried out in the economy, without deep going changes in men?s mentality ? in their opinion about femininity ? women?s equality may not be possible.