In the absence of a natural disaster we are left again to our own uneasy devices.

The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.

The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs.

To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is, a dissatisfaction with self.

We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

Memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember.

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.

The fear is for what is still to be lost.

Do not whine... Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone.

Short stories demand a certain awareness of one's own intentions, a certain narrowing of the focus.

Eventually sinking into despair, [Heinrich von Kleist] shot himself in 1811 as part of a suicide pact made with a woman suffering from incurable cancer.

She didn’t need a man. She wanted one.

The most powerful way to manifest is through subtle intention and choiceless awareness-inten d to let go and flow.

We must begin to understand the nature of intertextuality . . . the manner by which texts poems and novels respond to other texts. After all, all cats may be black at night, but not to other cats.

You need to prioritize. If you can't get to everything or do everything, that's okay.

Buddhism has to do with your daily life, with your suffering and with the suffering of the people around you.

I am interested in the gap between what people say and what they think - the undiscovered world of people's lives. Lives of quiet desperation.

What the American people don't understand is how Merrill Lynch or AIG or Lehman Brothers can reward people, and the entity fails. Not only do the shareholders lose, but the entities lose.

Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance.

Those of you who are strong need to be there for those who have lost someone today. We have to be here for each other right now.