As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.

Life is in one of its smoother phases ... I've no responsibilities in the world except friends and students and cherishing the life of the world -- and the belief that there is enough love to go round.

From a hundred cultures, [there is] one culture which does what no culture has ever done before-gives a place to every human gift.

Mourning has become unfashionable in the United States. The bereaved are supposed to pull themselves together as quickly as possible and to reweave the torn fabric of life. ... we do not allow ... for the weeks and months during which a loss is realized - a beautiful word that suggests the transmutation of the strange into something that is one's own.

I devoutly believe that there is no difficulty between two people for which both are not responsible.

Creationism: the theory that Rome was built in a day.

You know you love someone when you cannot put into words how they make you feel.