I have never lived before...Until this summer, I did not know what it was to be alive.

Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.

Great art always transcends its culture, while lesser art merely reflects it.

It's a very American trait, this wanting people to think well of us. It's a young want, and I am ashamed of it in myself. I am not always a good daughter, even though my lacks are in areas different from her complaints. Haven't I learned yet that the desire to be perfect is always disastrous and, at the least, loses me in the mire of false guilt?

In your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnet…There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or meter…And each line has to end with a rigid pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet…But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants…You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

Like and equal are not the same thing at all. -- Meg Murray

That's something I've noticed about food: whenever there's a crisis if you can get people to eating normally things get better.