And now you'll be telling stories of my coming back and they won't be false, and they won't be true but they'll be real

it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

I don't ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.

You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

Love dares the self to leave itself behind, to enter into poverty.

Excellence is not a destination; it is a continuous journey that never ends.

I want to make someone walk straight, but I've left my sons nothing but wars.

Al Gore couldn't be more phony if he were a professional Al Gore impersonator

Italians are fantastic people, really. They can work you over in an alley while singing an opera.

My dad taught me not to overplay, to think about my parts when I play, even in a live situation.

You must often make erasures if you mean to write what is worthy of being read a second time; and don't labor for the admiration of the crowd, but be content with a few choice readers.

From this moment on I know exactly where my life will go: seems that all I really was doing was waiting for love.

Poets and painters have the power to dare, I mean to dare to do whatever they may approve of.