What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.

It is in books, poems, paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge.

It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.

It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value.

Call it anything else if you will—fear, anxiety, nervousness, sweating—but “shyness” is the historic word for it.

Maybe this is how it happened first for everyone —adults promising us their own failed future.

With the death of bin Laden, it's finally time for Congress to bring back the pre-9-11 legal norm, before we decided it was okay to toss out our civil liberties if the 'bad guys' were scary enough.

The music business is a weird business. Sometimes licensing doesn't happen because some business component that you never knew about stops it.

Prayer is the forerunner of mercy. Turn to sacred history, and you will find that scarecely ever did a great mercy come to this world unheralded by supplication.

After marriage, all things change. And one of them better be you.

Ironically, in today's marketplace successful nonfiction has to be unbelievable, while successful fiction must be believable.

Maybe, I want her to do anything she wants, but I hope her interest in singing stays high.

The memories which come to us through music are not accompanied by any regrets; for a moment music gives us back the pleasures it retraces, and we feel them again rather than recollect them.

However weighed down and entangled in earthly fetters you may be, it can never be too late.