There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor, or the one red leaf the snow releases in March

You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted. Begin again the story of your life.

The heat of autumn is different from the heat of summer. One ripens apples, the other turns them to cider.

Zen pretty much comes down to three things -- everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.

How fragile we are, between the few good moments.

Habit, laziness, and fear conspire to keep us comfortably within the familiar.

How silently the heart pivots on its hinge.

Existence itself is nothing if not an amazement. Good poems restore amazement.

Something looks back from the trees, and knows me for who I am.

In sorrow, pretend to be fearless. In happiness, tremble.

You must try, the voice said, to become colder. I understood at once. It's like the bodies of gods: cast in bronze, braced in stone. Only something heartless could bear the full weight.

I did not find my studies particularly enthralling.

New Orleans is a glorious mutation

It was only one life. What is one life in the affairs of a state?

I think there's an enormous lot of talent around, and somewhere amongst these I'm sure that something will emerge, given time.

I don’t know why we insist on pain when pain is so often easy to eliminate. It’s funny the ways we try to punish ourselves when we feel we’ve committed some crime.

One who does not fall, does not stand up.

It frustrates me if I'm not good at something, so I do it until I get good at it.

I'm doing a lot of things in Africa. I've formed a company with two friends of mine called Made In Africa and we are doing a lot of important things across the continent.

Insensitivity makes arrogance ugly; empathy is what makes humility beautiful.

Don’t be afraid to give up the good for the great.