“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”

Wonder is not precisely knowing.

The sailor cannot see the north / but knows the needle can.

The things of which we want the proof are those we know the best.

Opinion is a fitting thing but truth outlasts the sun – if then we cannot own them both, possess the oldest one.

I dwell in possibility.

They might not need me; but they might. I’ll let my head be just in sight; a smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity.

I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.

Bring me the sunset in a cup.

Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.

Hold dear to your parents for it is a scary and confusing world without them.

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

I could not stop for death and he did not stop for me.

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.

PHOSPHORESCENCE. Now there’s a word to lift your hat to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that’s the genius behind poetry.

I’ll tell you how the sun rose, a ribbon at a time. The steeples swam in amethyst, The news like squirrels ran. The hills untied their bonnets, The bobolinks begun. Then I said softly to myself, “That must have been the sun!

I think I don’t take myself too seriously. You know as far as, it’s a fun life. I take my music serious, but I like to have fun.

I belong to the givers. I want to give a little happiness even if I haven’t had much for myself. Music has enriched my life and, hopefully – through me, a little – the public’s. If anyone left an opera house feeling more happy and at peace, I achieved my purpose.

Life’s a game made for everyone, and love is the prize.

Love is a chain of love as nature is a chain of life.

Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death.

I can handle reality in small doses, but as a lifestyle, it’s much too confining.

God gave me life to continue to do things that I would never have done.

You can’t base your life on other people’s expectations.