War is an absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to 'feel good' about themselves, or their country, is a measure of that failure.

The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.

Change is not a threat to your life, but an invitation to live.

There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.

My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.

We must use what we have to invent what we desire.

Courage is not defined by those who fought and did not fall, but by those who fought, fell and rose again.

The beauty of darkness is how it lets you see.

If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.

Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.

Language is power... Language can be used as a means of changing reality.

I wanta buy stuff. Stuff I don't need... Stuff settin' out there, you jus' feel like buyin' it whether you need it or not.-Uncle John

...shame spreads through his body like a drop of red dye in water.

The world is full of magical places, and the library has always been one of them for me. A library can be that special place for our children.

[Repentance] means unlearning all the self-conceit and self -will that we have been training ourselves into... It means killing part of yourself, under-going a kind of death.

I think the one thing that's going on here is that people are saying, uh-oh, the Chinese economy might be slowing more than we thought and the government is having a hard time stimulating it again.

The goat's business is none of the sheep's concern.

When you're young, you don't feel iconoclastic - you're just kind of doing what seems natural, what moves you.

Asking a writer what he thinks about criticism is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.

When you'd buy vinyl, you'd have this lovely-sized object with a lovely picture, and you'd read the lyrics and usually there was something artistic that went with it.

It is those who have this imperative demand for the best in their natures, and who will accept nothing short of it, that holds the banners of progress, that set the standards, the ideals, for others.