In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.
The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change.
Your life is much more important that you can imagine... it is your first treasure.
Do not be wedded forever to fear, yoked eternally to brutishness.
What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’.... And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.
The truth brings the past into the present and prepares us for the future. That's what truth does
That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation.
Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.
Talent, will and genius are natural phenomena like the lake, the volcano, the mountain, the wind, the star, the cloud.
I have risked everything to tell the truth. Tell the truth
As soon as healing takes place, go out and heal somebody else.
Naturally, if you love somebody, you do want to see their face every now and again, but that's not a condition of your love. People often get possession mixed up with love, and they say, "If you really loved me, you would call me." How - when life is going on? I think of you all the time, and the thought of you always lifts my spirits. But I'm not right at the phone!
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.
And I refused to make any sacrifices; for nothing on earth seemed more valuable than my peace of mind, my pleasure and my acclaim.
Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I'll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, 'I'd like to write about that.' Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.
Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more.
Some people cannot see a good thing when it is right here, right now. Others can sense a good thing coming when it is days, months, or miles away.
It is imperative that young white men and women study the black American history. It is imperative that blacks and whites study the Asian American history.
Live life as if it were created just for you.
The only thing is, people have to develop courage. It is most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you can't practice any other virtues consistently.
The masses are still ungrateful or ignorant. They prefer murder, poisonings, and crimes generally to a literature possessed of style and feeling.
To be angry is very good. It burns out things and leaves nutrients in the soil. You should always be ready to be angry at injustice and cruelty.
Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.
Be wary when a naked person offers you his shirt
It is quite wrong to think of old age as a downward slope. On the contrary, one climbs higher and higher with the ad-vancing years, and that, too with sur-prising strides. Brain-work comes as easily to the old as physical exertion to the child. One is moving, it is true, towards the end of life, but that end is now a goal, and not a reef in which the vessel may be dashed.
Try, start always at home. This is my encouragement to all writers, start at home. All virtues and vices begin at home, and then spread abroad.
We do not precisely enjoy liberty at the Figaro. M. de Latouche, our worthy director (ah! you should know the fellow), is always hanging over us, cutting, pruning, right or wrong, imposing upon us his whims, his aberrations, his fancies, and we have to write as he bids.
Lift up your eyes uponThis day breaking for you.Give birth againTo the dream.Women, children, men,Take it into the palms of your hands.Mold it into the shape of your mostPrivate need. Sculpt it intoThe image of your most public self.Lift up your heartsEach new hour holds new chancesFor a new beginning.
Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.
Poetry gave me back my voice.
I encourage courtesy. To accept nothing less than courtesy, and to give nothing less than courtesy.
We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men... We are who we are because they were who they were. It's wise to know where you come from, who called your name.
Words are things. You must be careful, careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Don’t do that. Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.
I would welcome a friendship with Lynne Hinton. I would welcome an invitation to sit down at her table, but mostly I would welcome her next book.
Though I do manage to mumble around in about seven or eight languages, English remains the most beautiful of languages. It will do anything.
Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.
I believe what I have to say is important, and I believe the people coming to hear me are important, and so the occasion of itself alone has an importance, which forces me to stare down my nerves.
Language. I loved it. And for a long time I would think of myself, of my whole body, as an ear.
This is my life. it is my one time to be me. i want to experience every good thing.
As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good.
The life of great geniuses is nothing but a sublime storm.
We really are 15 countries, and it's remarkable that each of us thinks we represent the real America. The Midwesterner in Kansas, the black American in Durham - both are certain they are the real American.
Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.
At our best, we are all teachers
A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream.
When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound.
A day will come when everything in my life will be changed, when I shall do good to others, when some one will love me, when I shall give my whole heart to the man whi gives ne his; neanwhile, U will suffer in silence and keep my love as a reward for him who shall set me free.
We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the whole book in the fire.
It's very important to know the neighbor next door and the people down the street and the people in another race.
Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!
I think when we don't know what to do it's wise to do nothing. Sit down quietly; quiet our hearts and minds and breathe deeply.
We must love stupid people better than ourselves; are they not the really unfortunate ones of this world? Do not people without taste and without ideal grow constantly weary, rejoicing in nothing, and being quite useless here below?
Life loves the liver of it. You must live and life will be good to you.
In today's climate in our country, which is sickened with the pollution of pollution, threatened with the prominence of AIDS, riddled with burgeoning racism, rife with growing huddles of the homeless, we need art and we need art in all forms. We need all methods of art to be present, everywhere present, and all the time present.
You don't have to tell everything you know, but let what you do say be the truth as you understand it.
I got my own back.
We must infuse our lives with art. Our national leaders must be informed that we want them to use our taxes to support street theatre in order to oppose street gangs. We should have a well-supported regional theatre in order to oppose regionalism and.
He was a simple man who had no inferiority complex about his lack of education, and even more amazing no superiority complex because he had succeeded despite that lack.
I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I'm a human being, too. And I'm on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.
We need to remember that we are all created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.
