There are these people who keep taking you in and feeding you and loving you and making the world a tiny bit safer than it feels. People have community and family, but existentially we are deeply isolated.

When faced with a crisis, do three things: breathe, pray and be kind.

[Her] work taught me that you could be all the traditional feminine things -- a mother, a lover, a listener, a nurturer -- and you could also be critically astute and radical and have a minority opinion that was profoundly moral.

I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We're here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don't have time to carry grudges; you don't have time to cling to the need to be right.

I love silence. I seek and create it at every opportunity. I need it to work.

You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town

You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren't. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don't think your way into becoming yourself.