Being free is being able to accept people for what they are, and not try to understand all they are or be what they are.

We must create a climate where people agree that human beings are more alike than unalike. The only way to do that is through education.

Without defeats, how do you really know who the hell you are? If you never had to stand up to something - to get up, to be knocked down, and to get up again - life can walk over you wearing football cleats. But each time you do get up, you're bigger, taller, finer, more beautiful, more kind, more understanding, more loving. Each time you get up, you're more inclusive. More people can stand under your umbrella.

I am overwhelmed by the grace and persistence of my people.

My son is the best thing that ever happened to me. And through me - to a lot of people.

It's hard because people think they have something to lose and the truth is they have everything to gain in trying to love somebody.

Happiness is a chance to talk to a friend, to hear good music, to have a good glass of wine. Happiness is a chance to be myself and to find people with whom I agree or who I don't agree but I can learn something.

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

There is a world of difference between facts and the truth. You can have so many facts that you don't deal with the truth. You never get to the truth. You have the places where, the people who, the times when, the reasons why, the methods how - blah blah. And never get to the human truth. The human truth is as elusive as the air. And as important as the air.

People don't always remember what you say or even what you do, but they always remember how you make them feel.

I will say, get health. No labor, pains, temperance, poverty, nor exercise, that can gain it, must be grudged.

We don’t grow old. When we cease to grow, we become old.

A foreign country is a point of comparison, where from to judge his own.

The uses of travel are occasional, and short; but the best fruit it finds, when it finds it, is conversation; and this is a main function of life.

He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things.

The soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still.

A man is what he thinks about all day long. 

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.

Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity.

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.

I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people's poet so I write for the people.

I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people - one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion's den. You can't just play around with all those big cats - you've got to take somebody on.

I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money.' Yes, I think everybody should be paid handsomely; I insist on it, and I pay people who work for me, or with me, handsomely.

I don't think there's such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

I think that that's the wisest thing - to prevent illness before we try to cure something.

And if a person is religious, I think it's good, it helps you a bit. But if you're not, at least you can have the sense that there is a condition inside you which looks at the stars with amazement and awe.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I'll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, 'I'd like to write about that.' Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they'll do wonders. I count on them.

I was thinking about that, about the journeys in the film, journey to the roots, journey to the heart. We're all on journeys.

I think we ought to give ourselves more time. We should be more patient with ourselves and with each other.

There are those who say that poets should use her and his art to change the world. I'd agree with that, but I think everybody should do that. I think the chef and the baker and the candlestick maker - I think everybody should be hoping to make it a better world.

I think all poems are commissioned. They just come to me without somebody outside commissioning them. The idea comes and I will live with them 'til I get it as close to what I mean. I've never been totally satisfied. I've come close a few times.

I don't think modesty is a very good virtue, if it is a virtue at all. A modest person will drop the modesty in a minute. It's a learned affectation.

I do hope that young men and women will start to think for themselves and start to take responsibility for their own thoughts.

My work is to be honest. My work is to try to think clearly, then have the courage to make sure that what I say is the truth.

It is better to control oneself, if one can, and not hit back. But on certain occasions, it is imperative to defend oneself. I don't think it's fair to ask anybody not to defend herself or himself.

Intelligence is a separate gift, for the benefit of students, so that they may think of themselves as intellectual and not very intelligent, or intelligent and not very intellectual. One hopes, of course, that they try to bring the two virtues, the two elements, into their lives at the same time.

Courage, I don't think anybody is born with courage. I think you may be born with a flair to braggadocio, you know. That's not courage.

Make the most of yourself for that is all there is of you.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Every artist was first an amateur.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

We become what we think about all day long.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.