The will to change begins in the body, not in the mind.

The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.

Change is not a threat to your life, but an invitation to live.

There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.

My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.

We must use what we have to invent what we desire.

Courage is not defined by those who fought and did not fall, but by those who fought, fell and rose again.

The beauty of darkness is how it lets you see.

If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.

Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.

Language is power... Language can be used as a means of changing reality.

My new story collection won’t please everyone, nor was it meant to. Then again, not everybody lives in my world. If they did, I’d have to move out and find another world to write about.

I miss more loving someone so deeply that I can't imagine a forever without her kisses.

We smoked the way other American families would have wine with dinner. For us, it was our sacrament. It was something that made a great life sweeter in every possible way.

I believe one of the next great moves of God is going to be through the believers in the workplace.

Approaching people is not - it's ironic that it's what I do - but it's not necessarily what I enjoy doing. Later on, I'm fine. Once we get talking I have a great time but not in the beginning.

I discovered suddenly that alienation, exploitation of man by man, under-nourishment, relegated to the background metaphysical evil which is a luxury.

In a real sense faith is total surrender to God .

I have known men who have been sold and bought a hundred times, who have only got very fat and very comfortable in the process of exchange.

In the end, life teaches us what is important, and that is family.

You have to keep on the very edge of something, all the time, or the picture dies.