“If we are all made of God, it is our friends who remind us. We pass the gift of God to them. They pass it back to us when we need it most.”

Don’t ye know that ev’ry Soul on Earth feels itself to be an Orphan?

Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.

Though my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.

And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.

Often I find that poems predict what I’m going to do later in my own writing, and often I find that poems predict my life. So I think poetry is the most intense expression of feeling that we have.

The truth is simple, you do not die from love. You only wish you did.

My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.

I don’t think that sex necessarily produces intimacy.

It is the city of mirrors, the city of mirages, at once solid and liquid, at once air and stone.

And what if I don’t want forgiveness?

The soul is awakened through service.

Many people today believe that cynicism requires courage. Actually, cynicism is the height of cowardice. It is innocence and open-heartednes s that requires the true courage — however often we are hurt as a result of it.

My mother wanted me to be her wings, to fly as she never quite had the courage to do. I love her for that. I love the fact that she wanted to give birth to her own wings.

Shakespeare wrote without knowing he would become Shakespeare

There is no loneliness like the loneliness of a dead marriage.

You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.

I repeat… that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.

I know how many people call him a racist and all this, and it just makes me sick because he’s not.

We have a big appetite for putting people down but, at the heart of everyone, there’s enough room for all of us to succeed.

I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.

All I ever wanted out of my life was to buy my mother a house. By 1995, I have achieved all I wanted materially in life.

Go forward bravely. Fear nothing. Trust in God; all will be well.

Make us eternal truths receive, And practice all that we believe.

I said I would never wear my gold again because it would be insensitive and disrespectful to all the people who died and lost everything in Katrina.