You are going to end up as one of those sad old men who poke around in rubbish bins.” “I’m going to end up in a hole in the ground... And so are you. So are we all.

(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.

The writers who have the deepest influence on one are those one reads in ones more impressionable, early life, and often it is the more youthful works of those writers that leave the deepest imprint.

When all else fails, philosophize.

We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.

I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering.

All creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice.

But he cannot see a connection between the end of yearning and the end of poetry. Is that what growing up amounts to: growing out of yearning, of passion, of all intensities of the soul?

I don't think we are ready to die, any of us, not without being escorted.

A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.

Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?

Women are just beginning to see that there's something about being a woman that's innately different from being a man. I love what I'm seeing take place and I know Julia has so much to offer.

Men have to be hooked. Women don't need that. Women go freely into anything. That's their power and at the same time their drawback. Men have to be led and women have to be contained

Adults end up shading things and shading the truth, and you end up lying and telling people what they want to hear.

I have the opportunity to do something positive, I want to stay positive. It's hustling backwards in my eyes when I can earn money legitimately. This is what I want to do.

To girls and women everywhere, I issue a simple invitation. My sisters, my daughters, my friends; find your voice

My goal is to make everyone and anyone a fan.

I can’t help thinking about memoir as a down-and-up process: Dive down for color; come up for context. Sink back down for action; climb back up for self-awareness and gratitude.

we are a small, interconnected world; that we are all safe or none of us are; that we are all well cared for or all at risk.

Fortunately, when you're a mom, the responsibility of caring for your child can keep you going.

Be a pattern to others, and then all will go well; for as a whole city is affected by the licentious passions and vices of great men, so it is likewise reformed by their moderation.