A new idea is rarely born like Venus attended by graces. More commonly it's modeled of baling wire and acne. More commonly it wheezes and tips over.

The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.

thinking about tracking. . . . Sometime in grade school, already your fate was settled, your socialclass was established for the rest of your life.

I want to do something very important. Like fly into the past and make it come out right.

Where do dreams come from?...they slink out of books, they lurk in the stacks of libraries. Out of pages turned they rise like the scent of peonies and infect the brain with their promises.

Drifting with things is a habit it takes almost dying to break.

they were in love with apocalypse, like all men, more in love with myths than with any woman.

When will women not be compelledto view their bodies as science projects, gardens to be weeded, dogs to be trained?When will a woman ceaseto be made of pain?

A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not be done

We can only know what we can truly imagine. Finally what we see comes from ourselves.

People were not getting back what they wanted for their sold labor. Taxes grew and services shrank. Prices rose and quality decayed. Everywhere people felt used and betrayed and coerced and cheated.

Inevitably we start by thinking that if our work is any good, we'll get money. It's as we would if you started up a business or if you work in another profession.

I was sometimes jeered by black soldiers who wanted me to sing something besides country music.

The difference between the denominational system and the public school system is all the difference between bolstering them up on the one hand and letting them alone of the other.

Our constitutional democracy demands our participation, all the time.

I completely took off my eyebrows one time for a screen test. I hadn't even gotten the role yet. So you have to have a commitment.

Online bullying has to stop.

The human body is vapor materialized by sunshine mixed with the life of the stars.

Of course, I will keep myself fit, keep my boots clean and you never know.

We have to use our discontentment to engage rather than disengage - our hope has to be more powerful than our cynicism.

Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will infifty years' time be in most cases no more than a man of talent.