Be compassionate to everyone. Don't just search for whatever it is that annoys and frightens you-see beyond those things to the basic human being. Especially see the child in the man or woman. Even if they are destroying you, allow a moment to see how lost in their own delusion and suffering they are.

Books became my world because the world I was in was very hard.

America is not nearly done. We're only in the beginning. Who knows who we will be? Who knows... what color we will be? It is all something that, maybe, our descendants - if they survive that long - will see.

The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one's people that has not previously been taken into account.

I can spend two hours grubbing about in my garden, dazed with pleasure and intent, and it feels like five minutes.

But it ain't easy, trying to do without God even if you know he ain't there, trying to do without him is a strain

The artist...is the voice of the people.