We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life.

As I watched the seagulls, I thought, That's the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with absolute trust.

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own.

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.

The only thing I know is this: I am full of wounds and still standing on my feet.

My soul comes from better worlds and I have an incurable homesickness of the stars.

You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint the paradise, then in you go.

In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can.

I said to the almond tree, 'Sister, speak to me of God.' And the almond tree blossomed.

In fact, there are many uses of the innumerable opportunities a modern life supplies for regarding - at a distance, through the medium of photography - other people's pain.

How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

Confident and courageous leaders have no problems pointing out their own weaknesses and ignorance.

You feel a little older in the morning. By noon I feel about 55.

Martin Luther King wanted to be morally consistent and speak out against various things that were wrong, not just racism.

My husband and I were born three weeks apart, and our plan had always been to throw a joint party for our 40th birthdays.

You cannot be born and you cannot die. You will exist in a universe that goes on forever. That is the ultimate horror from the Zen point of view. You could be unhappy forever.

Housework comes first, so girls often fall behind in school. Global statistics show that it's increasingly girls, not boys, who don't know how to read.

You do not die all at once. Some tissues live on for minutes, even hours, giving still their little cellular shrieks, molecular echoes of the agony of the whole corpus.

Many evil men are rich, and good men poor, but we shall not exchange with them our excellence for riches.