Those two teachers [Kathleen Blackshear and Robert von Neumann] were just fantastic, I thought. They never directed you in a single direction, but they just encouraged you to think for yourself.

We'll be potters, we'll be painters, we'll be textile designers, we'll be jewelers, we'll be a little this, a little of that. We were going to be the renaissance people [when we were young].

In fact, I believe to a certain extent a person today who starts with just clay, with no drawing and no painting and no figure drawing, still-life drawing, various things, they miss a great deal.

So I very quickly stopped almost all decoration. I was interested in the three-dimensional form of the pots, but my decoration was nonexistent.

Every pot is not going to be a masterpiece.

Alix [ MacKenzie] had stopped teaching because we had a child and she stayed home to take care of the baby, and I taught.

[Shoji] Hamada seldom drew an exact drawing of a pot that he was going to make.

It was a wonderful opportunity. And so for two and a half years we lived with [Bernard] Leach.

Bernard's [Leach] drawings delineated every little accent on the pot, every subtle curve and change of angle and proportion and all.

Bernard [Leach] was making pots which were duplicates of his drawing, and that was a difference of approach, which I think is quite critical to these two men [Leach and Shoji Hamada].

And as far as I know about Alix's [MacKenzie] work, I don't believe she ever did any sculptural work at all. It was always pottery.

Whenever you go on a trip to visit foreign lands or distant places, remember that they are all someone's home and backyard.

I terminated the interview when I didn't know what he was talking about and went upstairs to lunch.

Knowing that pain and conflict is just change trying to happen, that there is something beautiful on the other side, that it is just a cycle is helpful. Humor is always essential.

Climate change is also clearly a matter of huge interest and concern for the scientific community.

Style is the perfection of a point of view.

The very soul of the slothful does effectually but lie drowsing in his body, and the whole man is totally given up to his senses.

There's no such thing as an aura of mystery anymore. It doesn't exist. That's a thing of the past.

The brain is not a bag of traits. It's startlingly complex. There are few or no single genes with a consistent effect on the mind.

I give you an ability to respond and your response is to be free to love and serve in every situation, and therefore each moment is different and unique and wonderful.