We cannot at once catch the applauses of the vulgar and expect the approbation of the wise.
Normally when I read, I don't like music playing.
Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.
Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, to rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.
The only people who see the whole picture,' he murmured, 'are the ones who step out of the frame.
Perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin.
I reluctantly concluded that there was no way for me to help bring into being the Muslim culture I'd dreamed of, the progressive, irreverent, skeptical, argumentative, playful and unafraid culture which is what I've always understood as freedom. . . . Actually Existing Islam. . . which makes literalism a weapon and redescription a crime, will never let the likes of me in.
As poets, we don't accept oppression; we are about a freedom of spirit, or whatever you want to call it. I think environmental concerns have to go to the deep place, so we speak from a place of great empathy for the planet - for the disadvantaged people, animals, places, cultures.
My whole teaching consists of two words, meditation and love.
The way you speak to others can offer them joy, happiness, self-confidence, hope, trust, and enlightenment. Mindful speaking is a deep practice.
A man never speaks of himself without losing something. What he says in his disfavor is always beleived, but when he commends himself, he arouses mistrust.