“Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.”

“There are two kinds of people. One kind, you can just tell by looking at them at what point they congealed into their final selves. It might be a very nice self, but you know you can expect no more suprises from it. Whereas, the other kind keep moving, changing... They are fluid. They keep moving forward and making new trysts with life, and the motion of it keeps them young. In my opinion, they are the only people who are still alive. You must be constantly on your guard against congealing.”

“The more you respect and focus on the singular and the strange, the more you become aware of the universal and infinite.”

“Yes, if you believed in words, if you lived by words, you had better be careful which words you say and how you say them. You had better be careful what you look up, which words, which names. Jane Clifford, in The Odd Woman”

“How easy it was to make people happy, when you didn't want or need anything from them.”

“Banana is also a Methodist minister who became a liberation theologian and once reworked the Lord's Prayer to include the lines: "Teach us to demand our share of the gold/And forgive us our docility.”

“Leadership is about three-fourths show-the-way and about one-fourth follow-up.”