These scars bear witness but whether to repair or to destruction I no longer know.

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.

The heart stays heavy if it remains in a state of unforgiveness.

The library was the best place in the world.

You call that statesmanship. I call it an emotional spasm.

The life of spies is to know, not bee known.

All my stuff is pretty seamless - like now, while I'm touring [Yesterday I Sang The Blues], today I'm going to go in the studio, I'm writing my next one. For me it's continual.

The only way you preserve pitching arms is throwing that makes the arm stronger.

We are all continually embarking on first drafts, in every aspect of our lives.

And in a way, that's been a help to me, because I take great passions for a particular poet - sometimes it lasts for many years, sometimes only for a while. This happens to everybody.

I played volleyball for the greater part of my life, since I was 11 or 12 years.

I've always wanted to sail around the world in a handmade boat and I built a boat.