You were my home, Mother. I had no home but you

She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.

The phoenix must burn to emerge.

Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.

Whenever she turned her steep focus to me, I felt the warmth that flowers must feel when they bloom through the snow, under the first concentrated rays of the sun.

I hated labels anyway. People didn't fit in slots--prostitute, housewife, saint--like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water.

I couldn't imagine owning beauty like my mothers. I wouldn't dare.

Oleander time, she said. Lovers who kill each other now will blame it on the wind.

Her hatred glittered irresistibly. I could see it, the jewel, it was sapphire, it was the cold lakes of Norway.

Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them.

I took the volume to a table, opened its soft, ivory pages... and fell into it as into a pool during dry season.

You may need to change your dreams.

We are in the process of finding out what filling billions of acres with electrified glass that emits electromagnetic intereference (EMI) does to the global environment.

The more bombers, the less room for doves of peace.

Record the album after the tour.

I don't like what's going on with voter ID.

To realize the relative validity of one's convictions and yet stand for them unflinchingly is what distinguishes a civilized man from a barbarian.

When a body moves, it's the most revealing thing. Dance for me a minute, and I'll tell you who you are.

Marines are very good at fighting... And if Gen. Franks wants fighters on the ground and he puts Marines in, he'll have what he wants.

It is time the Arabs and the Jews sat down and settled this dispute in the true Christian spirit.

We shot 'High School Musical' in eight weeks. I spent longer rehearsing for 'Hairspray' than filming 'High School Musical'.