To arrange a library is to practice in a quiet and modest way the art of criticism.

So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.

Don't talk unless you can improve the silence.

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.

I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.

The worst labyrinth is not that intricate form that can entrap us forever, but a single and precise straight line

The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library . . . Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.

Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart, I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

The original is unfaithful to the translation.

Independent Thinking simply means making up your own mind.

Our identities are tremendously warped and distorted by yesterday's trauma and tomorrow's expectations.

He has achieved success who has lived well laughed often and loved much who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children.

We can't always choose how we feel. We can, however, choose what we do about it, which ironically can change how we feel!

I'm not trying to convey a message, I'm just trying to tell a story.

one of the blessings of adulthood is that one is no longer addressed as a thing.

I can neither teach nor live by the faith of others. I must live by my own faith as the Spirit of the Lord has taught me through His Word.

I can lose myself in the Universe.

Then I read Little Women, and of course, like a lot of really young girls, I was very taken with Jo - Jo being the writer and the misfit.