The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.

...most of the time, all you have is the moment, and the imperfect love of the people around you.

The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it...I would discover that it hadn't washed me away.

Then the singing enveloped me. It was furry and resonant, coming from everyone's very heart. There was no sense of performance or judgment, only that the music was breath and food.

Mine was a patchwork God, sewn together from bits of rag and ribbon, Eastern and Western, pagan and Hebrew, everything but the kitchen sink and Jesus.

The clipping said forgiveness meant that God is for giving, and that we are here for giving too, and that to withold love or blessings is to be completely delusional.

And I guess when you take away the resentment and disappointment, it's that simple. It is what we do in families: we help, because we were helped.

I tell you, families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness.

I'll live as well, as deeply, as madly as I can--until I die.

I watched him carefully. He was making art because he has to, and because he's brave enough to try and make contact, right there on the edge of madness, where he dreams.

Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.

Shrines! Shrines! Surely you don't believe in the gods. What's your argument? Where's your proof?

The things that matter most to me are eternal. The bonds of love shared within a family I believe to be eternal.

He who shall never be divided from me kissed my mouth all trembling.

Life is just one damned thing after another.

Fasting and feasting are universal human responses, and any meal, shared with love, can be an agape.

I always had good students.

My life is together, both professionally and socially.

When I was a kid, my parents had a 900-pound television on top of a TV tray. My dad's theory was, 'Let him pull it over his head a few times, he'll learn.'

I'm really into strong, female roles - but they don't have to necessarily be loud - I'm just as interested in introverts too.

Over the years, a lot of rappers - Lil' Wayne, Ice Cube - have used my name in their songs. I'm a real touchstone of history.