Art is a refining and evocative translation of the materials of the world.

Do not desire to fit in. Desire to oblige yourselves to lead.

We don't ask a flower any special reason for its existence. We just look at it and are able to accept it as being something different from ourselves.

I believe we should all know each other, we human carriers of so many pleasurable differences. To not know is to doubt, to shrink from, sidestep or destroy.

Reading is important - read between the lines. Don't swallow everything.

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.

Don't let anyone call you a minority if you're black or Hispanic or belong to some other ethnic group. You're not less than anybody else.

I think there are things for all of us to do as long as we're here and we're healthy.

Books are meat and medicine and flame and flight and flower steel, stitch, cloud and clout, and drumbeats on the air.

Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars.

Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies. And be it gash or gold it will not come again in this identical guise.

And stay, my dearstay...forever, as my quiet song, in my lilac dawn.

From time to time, you may see a girl wearing her black opaque tights as pants. They are, in fact, not.

The subjects felt more comfortable if they played the role than if they had to be themselves.

And every job that I had was a stepping stone to my next job and I never quit my job until I had my next job. And so opportunities look a lot like work.

The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?

The best teacher of children, in brief, is one who is essentially childlike.

In turbulent times, in times of great change, people head for the two extremes: fundamentalism and personal, spiritual experience.

My father would lift me high. And dance with my mother and me and then. Spin me around til I fell asleep. Then up the stairs he would carry me and I knew for sure I was loved.

God is religion; religion is God! There is no need ever for holy books, for holy rules or for so called holy envoys! God is religion; religion is God!

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.