Love is a really scary thing, and you never know what’s going to happen. It’s one of the most beautiful things in life, but it’s one of the most terrifying. It’s worth the fear because you have more knowledge, experience, you learn from people, and you have memories.

If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure – the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?

When I was a teenager, I thought how great it would be if only I could write novels in English. I had the feeling that I would be able to express my emotions so much more directly than if I wrote in Japanese.

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.

I think in defeat you grope for things that are happy, and it’s hard.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people’s kids than I did my own.

With compassion you can die for other people, like the mother who can die for her child. You have the courage to say it because you are not afraid of losing anything, because you know that understanding and love is the foundation of happiness. But if you have fear of losing your status, your position, you will not have the courage to do it.

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

Counsel with your parents is a privilege at any age.

Every once in a while I get the highly inappropriate proposal which is like, ‚Wow, Really! You don’t even know me and I don’t know you at all, and you want that to happen? Tonight? Ok, I get off work at 7.30.‘

It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.

A lot of people ask me when I do a stunt, ‚Jackie, are you scared?‘ Of course I’m scared. I’m not Superman.

Forty to 60 I would say is your prime. That’s when you know the most, you’ve seen the most, you understand the most, and you still have some physical energy.

Bitterness is cancer – it eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure.

If you love something – and there are things that I love – you do want more and more and more of it, but that’s not the way to produce good work. So as an author, I need to write what I need to write.

I’m a girls‘ girl. I have guy friends, but the problem with having guy friends is, like, I always get linked to them, and they’ll end up in a slideshow of people I’ve apparently dated on the Internet.

I do have a lot of gays in my family now, but some will never come out.

Love begins by taking care of the closest ones – the ones at home.

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.

Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries.

Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious.

Never marry someone in hope that they’ll change later.

I’m a songwriter. Everything affects me.

When a man fell into his anecdotage it was a sign for him to retire from the world.

Women have no sympathy and my experience of women is almost as large as Europe.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person.

Have you not noticed that love is silence? It may be while holding the hand of another, or looking lovingly at a child, or taking in the beauty of an evening. Love has no past or future, and so it is with this extraordinary state of silence.

The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

If you insist upon fighting to protect me, or ‚our‘ country, let it be understood soberly and rationally between us that you are fighting to gratify a sex instinct which I cannot share; to procure benefits where I have not shared and probably will not share.

Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Why should I henceforth not love my dreams and not make their riddling images into objects of my daily consideration?

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

In every parting there is an image of death.

All my stepchildren carried the burden of my fame. Sometimes they would read terrible things about me, and I’d worry about whether it would hurt them. I would tell them: ‚Don’t hide these things from me. I’d rather you ask me these things straight out, and I’ll answer all your questions.‘

How much better it would be if all could be more aware of God’s providence and love and express that gratitude to Him.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

There is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.

I learned to walk as a baby, and I haven’t had a lesson since.

Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age.

This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.

People need motivation to do anything. I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation.

I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.

I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

I’ve never had a dislike for men. I’ve been badly treated by some. But I’ve been loved greatly by some. I married a lot of them.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Because of a great love, one is courageous.

When you learn about the teaching and the practice of another tradition, you always have a chance to understand your own teaching and practice.

Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.

If a man’s character is to be abused there’s nobody like a relative to do the business.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.

All good leaders are connectors. They relate well and make people feel confident about themselves and their leader.