When you are young, you cannot imagine being disabled. You imagine you would conquer it somehow. As I’ve got older, I can imagine it; I can see how life narrows in. I feel compassion for my mother now.

My mother’s love has always been a sustaining force for our family, and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity, her compassion, her intelligence reflected in my daughters.

I don’t look at a man who’s expert in one area as a specialist. I look at him as a rookie in ten other areas.

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

My mom’s one of 13 siblings, and they all got six kids, and till I was 13 everybody was in Compton.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.

Do creative, social, and civic attitudes change depending on where we live? Yes, I think so.

If you don’t get out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand how much bigger the world is.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

You see, at the end of the day, my most important title is still ‚mom-in-chief.‘ My daughters are still the heart of my heart and the center of my world.

People see things differently and remember things differently. It’s why if somebody robs a liquor store and there are four witnesses they’ll often disagree.

He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

There is no such things as ‚best‘ in the world of individuals.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

Kids will remind you that, even though you’ve gone down a road 100 times, it’s brand new for them – and that’s healthy.

Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.

‚Unforgiven‘ is probably an example of a script that I liked right away but thought, ‚This is great, but I’d like to do this when I’m older.‘ So I stuck it in the drawer for ten years and then took it out.

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man’s life.

When you’re around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you’re supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.

To be social is to be forgiving.

Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.

So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.

An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness.

You are the universe, you aren’t in the universe.

It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.

She got her looks from her father. He’s a plastic surgeon.

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?

Prime time for men is, say, 35 to 45. Then they level off and fall off.

Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

Do everything as in the eye of another.

When the people become involved in their government, government becomes more accountable, and our society is stronger, more compassionate, and better prepared for the challenges of the future.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‚why?‘ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‚why not?‘

Think about what people are doing on Facebook today. They’re keeping up with their friends and family, but they’re also building an image and identity for themselves, which in a sense is their brand. They’re connecting with the audience that they want to connect to. It’s almost a disadvantage if you’re not on it now.

If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.

My mom and I have always been there for each other. We had some tough times, but she was always there for me.

I think the tiniest little thing can change the course of your day, which can change the course of your year, which can change who you are.

Everything is clearer when you’re in love.

Whoever is spared personal pain must feel himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our share of the misery which lies upon the world.

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

If your mom cries a lot, you probably cry a lot. It’s what you learn.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not.

I was offered a job on Wall Street by my uncle. But I wanted to get out. Make-it-on-my-own kinda thing.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

Doing Saturday Night Live definitely affects my relationship with my girlfriend and with my family, because you feel so much pressure to do well that night. But I think everyone’s grown to accept that and so they give me my space at the show.

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.

I don’t have people following me around, like bodyguards. I don’t know how people live like that. Maybe the young movie stars have to live like that, I don’t know. But it seems a little crazy to me. I don’t think you need all that stuff.

The eye sees what it brings the power to see.

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

Animals are my friends… and I don’t eat my friends.

I’m actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions that are unpopular.

All things considered, there’s nobody better for children than parents.