Poetry is meant to be heard.

it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

I don't ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.

You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

When you put on your thinking cap make sure it’s clean.

Sarucha (age 8): "Look, down there, I recognize it, ciudad de Jerusalén (the city of Jerusalem)! Jerusalén!, Jerusalén!" she exclaimed.

As I look around the quiet room, I see a thousand leather covers like doorways into worlds unknown.

It is U.S. workers who lose out when employers cannot get the high-tech graduates they need to compete with foreign companies in the 21st century economy.

My faith is very personal. It's not something that I want to project on other people.

Blacks are about seven times more likely to live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty than whites.

We may not know how to forgive, and we may not want to forgive; but the very fact we say we are willing to forgive begins the healing practice.

The strength and clarity of your vision will lift you out of the depth of any hardship.

Positive thinking is the key to success in business, education, pro football, anything that you can mention. I go out there thinking that I'm going to complete every pass.

After eating a hundred mice, the cat makes a hadj to Mecca.