The phoenix must burn to emerge.

She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.

Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.

You were my home, Mother. I had no home but you

Whenever she turned her steep focus to me, I felt the warmth that flowers must feel when they bloom through the snow, under the first concentrated rays of the sun.

I hated labels anyway. People didn't fit in slots--prostitute, housewife, saint--like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water.

I couldn't imagine owning beauty like my mothers. I wouldn't dare.

Oleander time, she said. Lovers who kill each other now will blame it on the wind.

Her hatred glittered irresistibly. I could see it, the jewel, it was sapphire, it was the cold lakes of Norway.

Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them.

I took the volume to a table, opened its soft, ivory pages... and fell into it as into a pool during dry season.

Love is the light through which we find joy and happiness.

The strength of a man is less of the man and much more of who and what backs the man.

Prayer is the best resort and God will guide you to feel beautiful moments even if you're weak or strong, bury your soul into the arms of the love of God.

I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don't mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home.

You think you're winning, but it's hard to say sometimes.

I like playing against LeBron more than anybody else in the league. He brings out the best in me, and I bring out the best in him.

The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.

I expected to get drafted. I knew that I wouldn't get drafted on that first day due to the fact that not a lot of people had the opportunity to see me play much.

Faith as tiny as a grain of sand allows us to move mountains.

The characters are the plot. What they do and say and the things that happen to them are, in a sense, what the plot is. You can't take character and plot apart from each other, really.