To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth all the years of sorrow that are to come.

I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can.

The heart lies to itself because it must.

We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.

We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.

Everyone forgets Icarus also flew.

I believe that Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods. Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt. But there’s music in us. Hope is pushed down but the angel flies up again taking us with her.

When I was walking in the mountains with the Japanese man and began to hear the water, he said, 'What is the sound of the waterfall?' 'Silence,' he finally told me.

Why do so manysettle for so little? I don't understand why they're not greedy for what's inside them.

WAKING AT NIGHT The blue river is grey at morning and evening. There is twilight at dawn and dusk. I lie in the dark wondering if this quiet in me now is a beginning or an end.

Don't go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.

One may suffer the long-term in order to grow in appreciation for the small things. For in short-term suffering, one only notices the large.

Don’t just exist

In the days following the crash, an axiom as old as the Republic came into play once more. In good times Wall Street wanted Washington to leave it alone. In bad times it wanted Washington to act.

Never take a path that has no heart in it. You can't lose if your heart is in your work, but you can't win if your heart is not in it.

Do as many ideas as possible. The right idea will pick you.

Cardinal Mazarin was a great knave, but no great man; much more cunning than able; scandalously false and dirtily greedy.

I regard freedom of expression as the primary right without which one can not have a proper functioning democracy.

Whenever I sat down to write something it was never anything I took lightly. It was something that I'd want you, somebody in Japan, and somebody [over there to hear it].

I would love to adopt a child from a Spanish speaking country, because I want to have Spanish in the home.