Truth never penetrates an unwilling mind.

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.

I don't admire the person who hides from the world and claims enlightenment. To be purified you have to be tested and there is no better test of strength than dealing with other people.

The roller coaster came to a stop and a good friend got off, but what a ride we'd taken together. It had been one hell of a trip.

Unemployment rates among Americans who never went to college are about double that of those who have a postsecondary education.

They self-inflict punishment on their own broken lives, put their faith in their possessions, in their jobs, or their wives.

I am the first podiatrist to serve in the U.S. Congress.

I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are.

I should like to know who has been carried off, except poor dear me - I have been more ravished myself than anybody since the Trojan war.

God knows it's a sign of a really sick mind to see grown people, adults with responsibilities, wearing class rings.

Cowardice, when done correctly, can be its own kind of bravery.