The thousands small birds of January in their smooth soaring cloud finding the trees.

I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else's story, the delicious ache of a last page.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

Poetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook, while the abundance around us continues to shimmer, on its own.

There is a place to stand where you can see so many lights you forget you are one of them.

... the real heroes of race and culture would always be the people who stepped out of their own line to make a larger circle.

You know, those of us who leave our homes in the morning and expect to find them there when we go back - it's hard for us to understand what the experience of a refugee might be like.

This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

Being good felt like a heavy coat, so I took it off.

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.

Energy is everything. Rubbing happy and sad together creates energy.

Honesty is the best insurance policy.

And you know what I realize now? That we're all waiting on something, no matter where we are in life. It's the human condition.

Success is usually the culmination of controlling failure.

I cannot rest from travel; I will drink Life to the lees.

No' and 'Yes' are words quickly said, but they need a great amount of thought before you utter them.

I don't look the same as I did 20 years ago, nor should I.

Casting is a long process for me. I take a lot of time.

I'm a big buffet dude, or I'm a big cheap-food-and-order-more-when-I-need-it dude.

America today is running on the momentum of a godly ancestry, and when that momentum runs down, God help America.

I don't have the recipe for happiness, but I think the engine is simply having the desire.