One must know not just how to accept a gift, but with what grace to share it.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings.

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

The most important thing is to DARE.

The children to whom we read simple stories may or may not show gratitude, but each boon we give strengthens the pillars of the world.

I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one's skin, at the extreme corners of one's eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe.

We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.