“Pain writes the words, sorrow wields the pen, tears wet the paper, and the story mends the heart.”

“He knows her like man knows earth, touching the surface but unaware of her depth.”

“There is something beautiful about a blank canvas, the nothingness of the beginning that is so simple and breathtakingly pure. Its the paint that changes its meaning and the hand that creates the s...”

“The ending of your story all depends on the beginning of ours.”

“Her silence should be feared more than her words.”

“It's the in-between, the sustenance, not just the gears and bolts that make a human. When you forget to find out how the person was built—the oil, chemistry, and the craft—you miss all the beauty.”

“There are two types of seeds in the mind: those that create anger, fear, frustration, jealousy, hatred and those that create love, compassion, equanimity and joy. Spirituality is germination and sp...”

“My music teacher offered twittering madrigals and something about how, in Italy, in Italy, the oranges hang on the tree. He treated me - the humiliation of it - as a soprano.These, by contrast, are...”

“If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.”

“To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.”

“art is risk made visible”

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

“Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect that life is no farce that it is not genteel comedy even that it flowers and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundes...”

“Let us love. Let our lives be a perpetual song of love for God, first of all, and for all human beings who suffer, love, and mourn. Let deep joy live in us. Let us be like the lark, enemy of the ni...”