If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn't realize the teacher was saying, 'Make it shine. It's worth it.' Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It's a new vision of something. It means you don't have to be perfect the first time. What a relief!

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.

Poetry [is] more necessary than ever as a fire to light our tongues.

I'm writing mostly to thank you for living you eighty years and to tell you I love you and think of you often.

Facts interest me less than the trailing smoke of stories.

This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

You know, those of us who leave our homes in the morning and expect to find them there when we go back - it's hard for us to understand what the experience of a refugee might be like.