We long to connect; we fear that if we do, our freedom and individuality will disappear.

Love, I think, is a gateway to the world, not an escape from it.

Even sad stories are company. And perhaps that's why you might read such a chronicle, to look into a companionable darkness that isn't yours.

No such thing, the queen said, as too many sequins.

One ambition of poetry, certainly, is to create a reverberant silence in its wake, one that means more or differently than the silence that preceded the poem.

The World Will Break Your Heart. Grief might be, in some ways, the long aftermath of love, the internal work of knowing, holding, more fully valuing what we have lost.

What did you think, that joy / was some slight thing?

There are those fortunate hours when the world consents to be made into a poem.

We love disasters that have nothing to do with us

Because the golden egg gleamed in my basket once, though my childhood became an immense sheet of darkening water I was Noah, and I was his ark, and there were two of every animal inside me

To choose to live with a dog is to agree to participate in a long process of interpretation, a mutual agreement though the human being holds most of the cards.

Don’t carry your ideas to the grave untouched.

There is only one truth, and that is love, all others are a byproduct.

Obstinacy and vehemency in opinion are the surest proofs of stupidity.

I know that sounds a little bit corny, but I've found some solace in that. I hope art can continue to do that for people, I really do.

The measure of your enlightenment is the degree to which you are comfortable with paradox, contradiction, and ambiguity.

My father and uncles and all their friends turned their lungs black trying to satisfy my collector's zeal.

If a warrior lacked wisdom, courage alone would not keep him alive for long.

Work is something you can count on, a trusted, lifelong friend who never deserts you.

Having enough money has to go hand in hand with living in a way that you're not being a slave to your possessions.

I've always believed film is most close to music of all the other arts.