Years ago, when he was around fourteen, he'd been all hipped on the idea of going to India. He read books about people sitting on rocks, naked, in all kinds of weather, but mostly bad, naturally, and walking barefoot through hot coals and arriving at wisdom. I used to say that it sounded to me as though they were getting away from wisdom as fast as they could. I think he sort of looked down on me for that.

It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate.

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, you won't live some other life, you won't live any life at all.

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction.

Artists are here to disturb the peace.

I conceive of God, in fact, as a means of liberation and not a means to control others.