To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal.

So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.

Don't talk unless you can improve the silence.

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.

I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.

The worst labyrinth is not that intricate form that can entrap us forever, but a single and precise straight line

The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library . . . Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.

Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart, I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

The original is unfaithful to the translation.

Life is lie, Living is the truth.

The more He loved those for whom He was the ransom, the more His anguish would increase, as it is the faults of friends rather than enemies which most disturb hearts!

When you're reaching the end of the semester and you just wanna die. Coffin Making 101 is literally killing me.-Karen Quan and Jarod Kintz

Poetry is like standing on the edge of a lake on a moonlit night and the light of the moon is always pointing straight at you.

The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.

Jesus Christ is in every way sufficient to the vast desires of the soul.

We have a chance for racial solidarity because all of us, unless you're in the top 1 percent, are really struggling in this economy.

My view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.

I was pretty hot-tempered all through school. I remember my high school basketball coach telling me: 'Boy, if you don't learn to control that temper, you're gonna kill somebody.'

I'm going to live my life. It's nobody else's decision, but mine. I think there are a lot worse things I could be doing with my life than what I choose to do.