The will to be totally rational is the will to be made out of glass and steel: and to use others as if they were glass and steel.

The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.

thinking about tracking. . . . Sometime in grade school, already your fate was settled, your socialclass was established for the rest of your life.

I want to do something very important. Like fly into the past and make it come out right.

Where do dreams come from?...they slink out of books, they lurk in the stacks of libraries. Out of pages turned they rise like the scent of peonies and infect the brain with their promises.

Drifting with things is a habit it takes almost dying to break.

they were in love with apocalypse, like all men, more in love with myths than with any woman.

When will women not be compelledto view their bodies as science projects, gardens to be weeded, dogs to be trained?When will a woman ceaseto be made of pain?

A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not be done

We can only know what we can truly imagine. Finally what we see comes from ourselves.

People were not getting back what they wanted for their sold labor. Taxes grew and services shrank. Prices rose and quality decayed. Everywhere people felt used and betrayed and coerced and cheated.

Maps codify the miracle of existence.

Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.

The will of God will not take us where the grace of God cannot sustain us.

The first Latin music that blew my mind was bumba, which was a Puerto Rican beat.

The keys to the life of the heart lie in reflecting upon the Quran, being humble before Allah in secret, and leaving sins.

If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself.

It is our fall from a simplicity and fullness of life directly experienced, from the sensuous moment of knowing, which leaves a gap that the symbolic can never bridge.

But theres a huge blessing that comes from being a part of a show like The Cosby Show that sets such a high standard of quality - it touched so many people on so many different levels.

Practice yourself what you preach.

Don’t cry for me, Grace. I’m not worth it. (Julian) Yes you are! (Grace) You are my saving Grace. Without you, I would never have known love. And I would never have known me again. (Julian)