“Men, chocolate, and coffee are all better rich.”

“Treat me like an angel and I'll be your little devil.”

“Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

“Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; But theatre will make you good.”

“The nuns taught us there are two ways through life, the way of Nature and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow. Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries.Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things.”

“MARIA. So. How is everyone? Can you hear me? I don't believe in microphones. Singing is first of all about projection. So is speech. People are forgetting how to listen. They want everything blasted at them. Listening takes concentration. If you can't hear me, it's your fault. You're not concentrating.”

“We'd all like to see our poems walking alone in the world. Like children reared to be independent adults. Some parents raise a child conservatively (that is, with no exposure to the darker things awaiting them beyond the door), but you can see how that's a mistake right? There's no way to know how best to prepare a child for the future. No way to know how to write a publishable poem -- I'm not saying safe poems don't get published. Or that sheltered children can't succeed. Just that you write the best poems you can and send them out. Sometimes they return home weeping. Sometimes they make their own way.”