One of a kind is too close to zero.
The soup burned the tongue, not the eye.
A friend is the enemy you dream of.
Let the heart sink so it can come up for air.
Impatience is cruelty in miniature.
Open a door before you open your mouth.
And unremembered dream is an unopened gift.
What you hate becomes a human being in the world.
Pray with words that are strange.
Loosen your nets and catch more fish.
Light a candle for each side of your heart.
Don’t obey what you can’t remember.
When you say what you mean, you add oxygen to the room.
Fame is a sarcophagus.
The you is softer than water, the I is harder than diamond.
Art is a temporary solution to a permanent problem.
Our opinions protect us from experience.
Forgive yourself before anyone else has to.
Be patient with impatience.
The mind is a moment late to the movie of the world.
If you never lose your balance, you can’t dance.
First share songs, then share secrets.
Now is as much a bud as a flower.
Every ten seconds is the day of repentance.
Amnesia and guilt are estranged sisters.
Hope burns the hopeless.
The eye lights up from within.
It was dark, so he closed his eyes.
In a sea of light, he was looking for a firefly.
Kindness is transparent.
Time is another name for God.
In all my agony, I heard a familiar sound.
Solitude is the way silence becomes the whisper of the first word.
Dogs bark most at other dogs.

Rodger Kamenetz
from his book the lowercase jew
Triquarterly Books, 2003
Used by permission of the poet.