Uncovering secrets is apocalyptic in the simple sense (the Greek root means ‘an uncovering’). In this case, it lifts the shame covers. It allows articulation to enter where silence once ruled.

But neither money nor machines can create. They shuttle tokens of energy, but they do not transform. A civilization based on them puts people out of touch with their creative powers.

Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.

A gift that cannot be given away ceases to be a gift. The spirit of a gift is kept alive by its constant donation.

An essential portion of any artist's labor is not creation so much as invocation

When we are moved by art we are grateful that the artist lived, grateful that he labored in the service of his gifts.

We are only alive to the degree that we can let ourselves be moved.

We forgive when we give up attachment to our wounds.

I think of a myth as a story that helps you explain all the different pieces of your life. In that broad sense, there is no way to live without mythology.

True citizens are not the audience of their government, nor its consumers; they are its makers.

The gift finds the man attractive who stands with an empty bowl he does not own.

I have always been a firm believer in God and the power of prayer, though to be honest, my faith has made for alist of questions I definitely want answered after I'm gone.

He's an idiot for letting you walk away in that dress tonight.

For the sake of goodness and love, man shall grant death no dominion over his thoughts.

Like tourists huffing and puffing to reach the peak we forget the view on the way up.

The balancing act of motherhood and a career, and being a wife, is something that I don't think I'll ever perfect, but I love the challenge of it.

As Benjamin Franklin said, 'Those things that hurt, instruct.' It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread but actually to welcome problems and actually to welcome the pain of problems.

Economists have much to be humble about.

When would he realize that it wasn't his infidelity I couldn't bear, but his cowardice?

The university most worthy of rational admiration is that one in which your lonely thinker can feel himself lonely, most positively furthered, and most richly fed

As a teenager and a young adult, I never felt like my own story was interesting enough to tell, so I always wrote lyrics from someone else's perspective - told someone else's story.