Ignorance is death. A closed mind is a catafalque.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

A finished person is a boring person.

There is a little boy inside the man who is my brother... Oh, how I hated that little boy. And how I love him too.

After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.'

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.

There is a lot of talk now about metal detectors and gun control. Both are good things. But they are no more a solution than forks and spoons are a solution to world hunger.

Look back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts.

You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life ... Your entire life ... Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.

America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.

Cowards make the best torturers. Cowards understand fear and they can use it.

I'm lucky I had some teachers who saw something in me.

Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.

The thesis that risk assessment itself is inherently risky is nowhere better borne out than in the area of high-consequence risks.

Playboy isn't like the downscale, male bonding, beer-swilling phenomena that is being promoted now by (some men's magazines). My whole notion was the romantic connection between male and female.

Nature is a series of murders.

We only get together when there's a good reason. Like, last summer, we didn't really intend to go out, but we thought the B-52's tour was a good opportunity.

I don’t mind failing, but if I succeed it better be worth succeeding for.

Sigh... I have learned that *everything* is so hard...except what Allah makes easy. So we must *beg* Him to make it easy on us.