The images of peace are ephemeral. The language of peace is subtle. The reasons for peace, the definitions of peace, the very idea of peace have to be invented, and invented again

In a time of destruction, create something.

In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.

A story can take you through a whole process of searching, seeking, confronting, through conflicts, and then to a resolution. As the storyteller and the listener, we go through a story together.

The work of preservation demands that the feelings playing about in one's guts not be turned into action. Just watch their passing like cherry blossoms.

I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.

We're all under the same sky and walk the same earth; we're alive together during the same moment.

To me success means effectiveness in the world, that I am able to carry my ideas and values into the world--that I am able to change it in positive ways.

Do the right thing by whoever crosses your path. Those coincidental people are your people.

I may be ugly and clumsy, but one thing I'm not, I'm not retarded.

Hunger also changes the world - when eating can't be a habit, then neither can seeing.

We are all bits and pieces of history and literature and international law.

The writer and his reader are both complicit in the act of storytelling. The writer must first leave a part of his soul on the page, like a contagion, which the reader then catches.

No matter how far down a path you go, if it's the wrong path, turn around and go back home - before it is too late.

Waiting is not always a bad thing

The thin and precarious crust of decency is all that separates any civilization, however impressive, from the hell of anarchy or systematic tyranny which lie in wait beneath the surface .

The present non-aristotelian system is based on fundamental negative premises; namely, the complete denial of 'identity.'

One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.

Mexico doesn't seem alien to Californians.

When I do not understand, I like to say nothing.

A child's death is really of less value than an adult's. I mean, what could you really accomplish in a year? Not much, and that's not even talking about, you know, pay-wise.