We have to defeat ISIS. That is my highest counterterrorism goal.
After 'The Poisonwood Bible' was published, several people believed that my parents were missionaries, which could not be further from the truth.
Poetry feels like a country I visit without a passport, where I look around furtively, grab hold of something precious, and try to smuggle it back across the border. Any poem I get written down feels like contraband to me.
It's what you do that makes your soul.
the conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners
Will you explain to me why people encourage delusional behaviour in children, and medicate it in adults?
When I look out the window, I exhale a prayer of thanks for the color green, for my children's safety, for the simple acts of faith like planting a garden that helped see us through another spring, another summer. And I inhale some kind of promise to protect my kids' hopes and good intentions we began with in this country. Freedom of speech, the protection of diversity - these are the most important ingredients of American civil life and my own survival. If I ever took them for granted, I don't know.
I am not an icon of democracy. You are all, collectively, the icon of democracy.
I have a really powerful urge to see things work.
There is nothing as easy as denouncing. It don't take much to see that something is wrong, but it does take some eyesight to see what will put it right again
Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.