“But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.”

When you have learned, through discipline, to simplify your life, and so practiced the mindfulness of meditation, and through it loosened the hold of aggression, clinging, and negativity on your whole being, the wisdom of insight can slowly dawn.

We need an equal opportunity society, one in which government does not see its job as picking winners and losers. Where do you go if you want special favors?

Bad quarrels come when two people are wrong. Worse quarrels come when two people are right.

I think mine is a very rich life.

She went out and took a last long look at the shabby little library. She knew she would never see it again.

And always, there was the magic of learning things.

…the reading, the observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only – the something different from anyone else in the two families.

It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life – the one different thing such as that which makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike.

The neighborhood stores are an important part of a city child’s life.

You won’t die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.

Well, there’s a little bit of man in every woman and a little bit of woman in every man.

Some people do crossword puzzles. I do books.

I wrote about people who liked fake fireplaces in their parlor, who thought a brass horse with a clock embedded in its flank was wonderful.

What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction. If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.

I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding.

Sometimes I think it’s better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that terrible pain, than to just be… safe. At least she knows she’s living.

When I was younger it felt very alienating and I try my best to be the person that I would’ve needed, for other people.

Patch was in my life for a reason. I needed him. We were two halves of the same whole.

Being a hero doesn’t mean you’re invincible. It just means that you’re brave enough to stand up and do what’s needed.

I think it’s very important to send the message that, while parents are needed to remind you to practice and occasionally force you to finish things… they also need to learn to respect you. You as an individual, ultimately, are the captain of where you’re going.

I can’t say I was really that surprised when the doctor told me I needed a defibrillator inserted in my chest.

For artists and intellectuals today, what is most needed is to be clear about social responsibility, because that is what most people automatically give up. Just to protect yourself as an individual is very political.

It really moved the dial politically. That’s what is needed in the women’s movement – a strategy that can drive awareness and culture change.

To make up a dance, I still need, as I needed then, a pot of tea, walking space, privacy and an idea.