Moral certainty can deafen people to any truth other than their own.

To know a man's library is, in some measure, to know a man's mind.

A book is more than the sum of its materials. It is an artifact of the human mind and hand.

There are always a few who stand up in times of communal madness and have the courage to say that what unites us is greater than what divides us.

She was like a butterfly, full of color and vibrancy when she chose to open her wings, yet hardly visible when she closed them.

I'm a praying atheist. When I hear an ambulance siren, I ask for a blessing for those people in trouble, knowing that no one's listening. I think it's just a habit of mindfulness.

The brave man, the real hero, quakes with terror, sweats, feels his very bowels betray him, and in spite of this moves forward to do the act he dreads.

It is human nature to imagine, to put yourself in another's shoes. The past may be another country. But the only passport required is empathy.

Book burnings. Always the forerunners. Heralds of the stake, the ovens, the mass graves.

Who is the brave man--he who feels no fear? If so, then bravery is but a polite term for a mind devoid of rationality and imagination.

You go on. You set one foot in front of the other, and if a thin voice cries out, somewhere behind you, you pretend not to hear, and keep going.

Treachery and violence are a just return for treachery and violence.

I define influence simply as literary love, tempered by defense. The defenses vary from poet to poet. But the overwhelming presence of love is vital to understanding how great literature works.

Fight the good fight of faith, and God will give you spiritual mercies.

I know that people will remember me as Miss Universe because it was my first great achievement, but I still have my whole career ahead of me.

Her [ Onata April] great talent as an actress is that she has the ability to understand and listen to the scenario and what the story is, and then she can pretend and live that.

I always said God was against art and I still believe it.

One must always be civic-minded.

The threshold by the Commission on Presidential Debates. In the words of the League of Women Voters, they are a fraud being perpetrated on the American public.

I never wanted to stop. I feel like to the day I die I'll play guitar and sing.

Bind up their wounds - but look the other way.