No, I don't mean love, when I say patriotism. I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression.

The creative adult is the child who has survived.

People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.

The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.

Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to go fulfill my proper function in the social organism. I'm going to unbuild walls.

I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant.

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.

There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.

You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.

There are few times that I feel more at peace, more in tune, more Zen, if you will, than when I force myself to unplug.

Emotions don't distract high performers.

Failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine, and because of that, it's a pure state of being.

To know your way round a library is to master the whole of culture, i.e. the whole world.

The whole ability to look at the complexity of race and any sort of associated -ism and still find humor, that's a very interesting space.

I love that we can trust Barack to do what he says he's going to do, even when it's hard - especially when it's hard.

I kind of entered a flow state. I've been there before while climbing. You are not thinking ahead. You are just thinking about what is in front of you each second.

Things are achieved when they are well begun.

I didn't say them things that I said.

I'm half deaf. I have nerve damage and a constant ringing in both of my ears, and there are certain times and conditions when I can hardly hear at all.