For two decades, I’ve maintained a list of quotes I like by poets, writers, and thinkers I find interesting. This post is part of that series. All posts in the series are organized alphabetically. Some poets and writers have their own dedicated pages.

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Before taking a workshop with Afaa Michael Weaver, I didn’t know that when we write about our traumas, our brain reworks the neuroplasticity of that event. Meaning that we have the power to shape how we remember trauma. At the atomic level, poetry has the power to heal us through transgressions. Remembering is a transgression because I do not want to relive the trauma, but shaping it, redrafting it, moves me away from it; I can control it. This process is not much different than cutting a saguaro in the desert because you do not want to scrape needles, to hack at the beautiful cactus, but you must. Shaping a hole, not too small and not too big, moves you away from death; you can drink the green water and live. — Javier Zamora

Sometimes / I wake and my throat is dry, so I drive to botanical gardens / to search for red fruit clutched to saguaros, the ones at dusk / I threw rocks at for the sake of slashing hunger. / But I never find them here. These bats say speak English only. / Sometimes in my car, that viscous red syrup / clings to my throat, and it’s a tender seed toward my survival — Javier Zamora

Well, basically sounds are for listening to, and composition is the act of organizing sounds. — Frank Zappa

The true story of this place / recalls people walking / deserts all their lives and / continuing today, if only / in their dreams. — Ofelia Zepeda

The right to life for everyone. This is exactly what we are fighting for in Ukraine. Very fiercely, together with our military. This is exactly what these weak invaders want to deprive us of. This is exactly what the whole world must protect. — Volodymyr Zelensky