I still think the revolution is to make the world safe for poetry, meandering, for the frail and vulnerable, the rare and obscure, the impractical and local and small.

There is no one as dangerous as he or she who has nothing to lose.

Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.

A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another.

To be hopeful means to be uncertain about the future, to be tender toward possibilities, to be dedicated to change all the way down to the bottom of your heart.

Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don't--and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown.

Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.

Politics is pervasive. Everything is political and the choice to be "apolitical" is usually just an endorsement of the status quo and the unexamined life.

Memory, even in the rest of us, is a shifting, fading, partial thing, a net that doesn't catch all the fish by any means and sometimes catches butterflies that don't exist.

Every minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style.

Revolution is as unpredictable as an earthquake and as beautiful as spring. Its coming is always a surprise, but its nature should not be.

All the blessings we enjoy are Divine deposits, committed to our trust on this condition, that they should be dispensed for the benefit of our neighbors.

It was always scary, Charlie replied, but that was why you did it, right? If it was safe... it wouldn’t be fun.

The Lord performs mighty wonders and glorious miracles.

When I was younger, I think I intimidated people much more because I was far more insecure.

People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point.

We wander through old streets, and pause before the age stricken houses; and, strange to say, the magic past lights them up.

Like wildflowers you must allow yourself to grow in all the places people thought you never would.

Mama gives you money for Sunday school, you trade yours for candy after church is through.

If ever you wish to meet intellectual frauds in quantity, go to Paris.

Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.