We either live or die based on how we live in cities, and our society is either going to be great or not based on how we perform as creatures of the city.

The beauty of love is that in giving it away, you are left with more than you had before.

Awakening into love is a lifelong path.

The drug war is a holocaust in slow motion.

A little anger is a good thing if it isn't on your own behalf, if it's for others deserving of your anger, your empathy.

Every day, human beings are worth less. That's the triumph of capitalism. The money gets made, and the fewer people we need to make that money.

People from here will often say, "I'm not from the United States, I'm from New Orleans."

To be told you've won a MacArthur fellowship is very flattering and gratifying personally.

Genuine inner freedom is the ultimate aim of life. It is the unspoken goal of every thought you have and every action you take.

Life is too short to carry the burden of a heavy heart. It does not serve you or anyone else. Free yourself through the power of forgiveness and compassion.

The best #‎ gift we can give in any interaction is to leave people feeling lighter, #‎ happier , and more at #‎ peace .

I was always making up rhymes. But I never thought that poetry would become my life.

Most people just laugh when they hear that the secret to success is giving. Then again, most people are nowhere near as successful as they wish they were.

I have found some of the best reasons I ever had for remaining at the bottom simply by looking at the men at the top.

If vitality gives a man's perspectives color, if community bonds give them breadth, if awareness of the land makes them realistic, a deep sense of loyalty gives them personal meaning and integrity.

The task is to transform society; only the people can do that - not heroes, not celebrities, not stars.

I can just let my curiosity wander unleashed.

Conversation is not a search after knowledge, but an endeavor at effect.

Lawyers love paper. They eat, sleep and dream paper. They turn paper into gold, and their files are colorful and their language neoclassical and calli-graphically bewigged.

Naming one thing after another cannot, logically, increase the chances of the new thing turning out like the old thing.

When I became successful as a model in the United States, I knew that my chance to be heard had come and so I took it.