What would it be like to have not only color vision but culture vision, the ability to see the multiple worlds of others.

We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.

The past empowers the present, and the sweeping footsteps leading to this present mark the pathways to the future.

The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.

There are few things as toxic as a bad metaphor. You can't think without metaphors.

As you get up in the morning, as you make decisions, as you spend money, make friends, make commitments, you are creating a piece of art called your life.

When parents die, all of the partings of the past are reevoked with the realization that this time they will not return.

The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.

Worlds can be found by a child and an adult bending down and looking together under the grass stems or at the skittering crabs in a tidal pool.

Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity.

Goals too clearly defined can become blinkers.

when you're a poetyou can dish out whatever'son your mind and you don't have toapologize for it

It's so rare that I'll read or even watch an interview. I don't want to, either. I don't want to see other people's comments.

The fact is: It's true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it.

It's an astonishing skill that people can read, and read well. Very few people can read well. For instance, I have to be very careful with irony, saying something while meaning the exact opposite.

I think people were expecting me to be that kind of glamorous sexpot. So they were always, Wow you're not what I expected.

What we say does not matter - only what God says to souls through us.

It's fun to be amazing, to be the star of the show, to have everyone watching you-even if you have to act like a pig.

I really, really try to be a good servant. It makes me happy when I'm a good giver without expectations.

Anytime we can save lives or prevent the destruction of property, we should do it.

Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.