Death is with you all the time; you get deeper in it as you move towards it, but it's not unfamiliar to you. It's always been there, so what becomes unfamiliar to you when you pass away from the moment is really life.

It is important for this country to make its people so obsessed with their own liberal individualism that they do not have time to think about a world larger than self.

I'm so disturbed when my women students behave as though they can only read women, or black students behave as though they can only read blacks, or white students behave as though they can only identify with a white writer.

I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.

You must have courage to love, you have to have a profound will to do what is right to love, and it does not come easy.

Knowing love or the hope of knowing love is the anchor that keeps us from falling into that sea of despair.

When we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people, we can draw nearer to the earth, we can draw nearer to all the heavenly creatures that surround us.