The disparity between what people said life was and what I knew it to be unnerved me at times, but I swore that nothing would ever make me say life should be anything.

God is an immensity, while this disease, this death, which is in me, this small, tightly defined pedestrian event, is merely and perfectly real, without miracle—or instruction.

I look upon another's insistence on the merits of his or her life - duties, intellect, accomplishment - and see that most of it is nonsense.

It is like visiting one's funeral, like visiting loss in its purest and most monumental form, this wild darkness, which is not only unknown but which one cannot enter as oneself.

Memory, so complete and clear or so evasive, has to be ended, has to be put aside, as if one were leaving a chapel and bringing the prayer to an end in one's head.

I am in an adolescence in reverse, as mysterious as the first, except that this time I feel it as a decay of the odds that I might live for a while, that I can sleep it off.

Public radio is alive and kicking, it always has been

Death and I are head to head in a total collision, pure and mutual distaste.

Being ill like this combines shock - this time I will die - with a pain and agony that are unfamiliar, that wrench me out of myself.

True stories, autobiographical stories, like some novels, begin long ago, before the acts in the account, before the birth of some of the people in the tale.

I feel sorry for the man who marries you... because everyone thinks you're sweet and you're not.

If we feel inwardly strong, we will have no need or desire to speak ill of others.

Your feelings are the utmost priority, your desires are more important than anyone else's deadline or mandate.

Whether it's in the right way or sometimes the wrong way, you learn about life and its lessons.

Spiritual life is not dry, it is also exceuted happily, 'susukham'. The result of that is not just happiness, but bliss, spiritual joy.

If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must have dissent.

My work is an exploration of the self. I've always been concerned with how I'm living and how that reflects in the painting.

I have been bullied for sure in my life. I am only 5'2", was chubby most of my life so I did get teased for that and also for being in movies.

I liked science. I wasn't mathematically oriented, so I became an organic chemist.

Don't fool people to think you are better than who you are. Instead of trying to act changed, pray that you will be changed.

I'm not the kind of guy who's taking advantage of my position.