To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill, of things unknown, but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom.

Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.

When things were very bad his soul just crawled behind his heart and curled up and went to sleep

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.

Language is man's way of communicating with his fellow man and it is language alone which separates him from the lower animals.

Few, if any, survive their teens.

It may be enough, however, to have it said that we survive in exact relationship to the dedication of our poets (include preachers, musicians, and blues singers).

She left me, offended at my want of sympathy, and thinking, no doubt, that I envied her. I did not - at least, I firmly believed I did not.

You don't just... just float someone in the air like that!" she shouted, so beside herself she was almost frenzied."Why? Is there some human law against it?

I don't believe any experiment until it is confirmed by theory. I find this is a witty inversion of "conventional" wisdom.

At the moment, my mother is the only one left in Glasgow, although it's certainly my home.

What I've learned about comedy people is that they're defined by the harshest level they've been to, their personal Auschwitz.

I want to say something to you men. You cannot destroy the appointment of a prophet of God, but you can cut the thread that binds you to the prophet of God, and sink yourselves to hell.

Yes, I'm Catholic; I'm proud of it. But I had lots of Protestant friends.

That is the ego which rises and sinks periodically. But you exist always. That which lies beyond the ego is consciousness - the Self.

It may take sixteen pounds of grain to make one pound of beef, but it also takes one hundred pounds of fish to make that one-pound of beef!

When in doubt, shoot. That's how I look at it.