Fingers interlocked like a beautiful accordion of flesh or a zipper of prayer

Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away.

This world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

If I should have a daughter, instead of "Mom," she's going to call me "Point B," because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me.

It does not matter how strong your gravity is, we were always meant to fly.

Most days it feels as if the world is whirling around me and I am standing still. In slow motion, I watch the colors blur; people and faces all become a massive wash.

Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you've done something wrong but don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.

There are parts of me I only recognize from photographs.

Not all poetry wants to be storytelling. And not all storytelling wants to be poetry. But great storytellers and great poets share something in common: They had something to say, and did.

Forgive yourself for the decisions you have made, the ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night.

You can only fit so many words in a postcard, only so many in a phone call, only so many into space before you forget that words are sometimes used for things other than filling emptiness.

You can’t make someonedo something just becauseyou want them to.What you do have, however, is the opportunity toinfluence their choices.

At independence, Tanzania had 350, 000 elephants... in 1987, there were only 55, 000 elephants left.

Well, the stuff that I liked growing up was AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, but I also liked the Beatles and guys like Cat Stevens and Elton John.

Your suffering is my suffering and your happiness is my happiness.

It's not dependency that creates your future. It's independence that creates your better future.

The more seriously you take your growth, the more seriously your people will take you.

I have always thought of myself as a painter derailed by circumstance.

Once let good faith be abandoned, and all social existence would perish.

The free electoral process is one of the things that outsiders envy most about this country. The distinctly American two-party system is perpetuated through that process.

I'm feeling incredibly Botox-tempted as my face collapses around my shoulders.