why are we so monumentally slow?

I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else's story, the delicious ache of a last page.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

Poetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook, while the abundance around us continues to shimmer, on its own.

There is a place to stand where you can see so many lights you forget you are one of them.

... the real heroes of race and culture would always be the people who stepped out of their own line to make a larger circle.

You know, those of us who leave our homes in the morning and expect to find them there when we go back - it's hard for us to understand what the experience of a refugee might be like.

This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

Being good felt like a heavy coat, so I took it off.

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.

Energy is everything. Rubbing happy and sad together creates energy.

You want to know how I think art should be taught to children? Take them to a museum and say, 'This is art, and you can't do it.

There are still very few laws against thinking, although I am sure they're working hard on that in Washington.

A fair and just society offers equality of opportunity to all. But it cannot promise, and should not try to enforce, sameness.

Poverty is not just a lack of money; it is not having the capability to realize one's full potential as a human being

I'm a terrible dancer! I dance like a guy who is trying to dance.

Living in a constant chase after gain compels people to expend their spirit to the point of exhaustion.

Well, everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking.

Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt.

Truth isn't beauty. It isn't even always true. Truth is nothing more than consistency of message. I learned that from advertising.

I have this fear of falling in front of large groups of people. That's why I tend not to wear heels.