You may not get what you paid for, but you will pay for what you get.

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.

The question is not how to survive, but how to thrive with passion, compassion, humor and style.

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, Into your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you - black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

I like to go back and read poems that I wrote fifty years ago, twenty years ago, and sometimes they surprise me - I didn't know I knew that then. Or maybe I didn't know it then, and I know more now.