Use your notebook to breathe in the world around you.

You don't learn to write by going through a series of preset writing exercises. You learn to write by grappling with a real subject that truly matters to you.

When students write from experience, they can breathe those specifics into their writing- dialect, odd smells, precise names of plants- that can animate even the most tired and tedious text.

Here's the secret of writing: there is no secret.

Good writing happens when human beings follow particular steps to take control of their sentences-to make their words do what they want them to do.

Writing becomes beautiful when it becomes specific, concrete.

The real meaning of a poem is to stop time.

Poems are the 'daredevil' of writing because a poem will say what nobody else wants to say.

Springtimeand I wish I knew you

The parents of politics are lack of control and seeking to control. The parents of leadership are influence and trust.

The single biggest advantage of being completely surrounded is that it gives you the opportunity to attack the enemy in any direction you choose.

There are so many female directors coming into the industry and a lot of them have important stories they want to tell that seem to fall a little bit more on the indie level.

Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs.

Non cogitant, ergo non sunt.

...one can hardly deny that mankind has a common store of thoughts which is transmitted from one generation to another.

I was raised in Brooklyn, and I lived there for 59 years.

My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

I'd like to think that we've certainly strengthened the position of some of our government businesses.

I've heard myself referred to as a quiet superstar, and I don't quite know what that means.