Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.

I'm conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There's hardly a day that goes past on which I don't write poetry.

The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.

The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.

Morality is not just any old topic in psychology but close to our conception of the meaning of life. Moral goodness is what gives each of us the sense that we are worthy human beings.

I don't think of myself as a role model, but I do feel like, for women out there who are trying to figure out who they are, the most important choice to make is to live a life that's true to who you are inside. And let your ideas and your heart and your mind drive your fashion choices.

Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.

It ended up being a very good thing, because they finally started writing for the character, and I realized that you have to go to work with a purpose. I learned from the experience and then moved on.