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

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

My mom cleaned toilets for a long time, and she’d seen a lot of terrible things, but she was still the strength of our family. And there are women like that all across the country – all around the world – who show that type of fortitude.

I like working. That’s when I’m feeling my best. And the people around me know that. My wife knows that.

My greatest blessing has been the birth of my son. My next greatest blessing has been my ability to turn people into children of mine.

A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don’t function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick.

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

Remember that no relationship is a total waste of time. You can always learn something about yourself.

People like music when they’re in love, but they don’t need it as much. You need music when you’re missing someone or you’re pining for someone or you’re forgetting someone or you’re trying to process what just happened.

I just think overall there’s not as many female ministers than there are male ministers.

We cannot always assure the future of our friends; we have a better chance of assuring our future if we remember who our friends are.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me… All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbour.

I have a very good family. I’m very fortunate to have a very good family. I believe very strongly in the family. It’s one of the things we have in our platform, is to talk about it.

I don’t travel with them, but they can’t be missing in my home. There have to always be dominoes… I used to play with my family – dad, my grandpa, my uncles.

I started being really proud of the fact that I was gay even though I wasn’t.

I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing ‚Maria‘ from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up.

I never wanted to stay in one genre; I never wanted to be pigeon-holed or defined as the actor who only worked in one genre. I want to be able to work in all different genres. For me it’s fun, and that’s how I grow as an actor.

I’ll tell you one thing, since I’m married, single people look absolutely ridiculous to me.

I think the whole stigma of ‚black movies‘ is slowly being lost. When you look at movies like ’12 Years A Slave,‘ to ‚The Butler,‘ to ‚The Best Man,‘ to ‚Ride Along,‘ to even ‚Think Like a Man‘ from last year – these movies are just good movies.

Men and women do think differently, and frankly, we don’t understand each other. Not at all! But that’s what makes relationships so amazing.

Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.

I approach love differently now that I know it’s hard for it to work out.

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

Our inquiring friends and neighbors not of our faith can also catch the wave. We encourage them to keep all that is good and true in their lives. And we invite them to receive more, especially the glorious truth that through God’s eternal plan, families can be together forever.

Don’t ever call a guy first. The thing they want the most is whatever they can’t have. It sounds really juvenile, but it works.

I’ve… been accused of being involved with every man I’m ever seen with or worked with. Maybe I have, maybe I ain’t. I never tell if I have.

When we started, a lot of bands sounded really different from one another.

To love is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

They do not love that do not show their love.

Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.

Love, we say, is life; but love without hope and faith is agonizing death.

I’ve never been a hands-on dad. I’m not ashamed to admit it, but you can’t run a restaurant and be home for tea at 4:30 and bath and change nappies.

Pfft, I hate Christmas Day. It’s for children and families. Not for people like me.

We don’t need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful.

In terms of my involvement in ‚don’t ask, don’t tell‘ and marriage equality and anti-bullying and social emotional learning in schools – these are all things that arise out of my relationship with the world and with my fans.

One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.

I’ve done the bad-boy thing. It was fun for a good three months. But the thing about bad boys is, you have to keep in mind, you’re never gonna marry a bad boy.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.

Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.

I mean… in life… what relationship is easy?

My mother, my grandmother, my uncles would play Ethiopian artists like Aster Aweke and Mulatu Astatke all the time in the house.

Jealousy is just love and hate at the same time.

As a father and now a grandfather to three wonderful grandchildren, I know how magical the first year of a child’s life is but also how much hard work it takes. Being able to spend as much time as possible with your loved ones is absolutely vital, especially early on.

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

If you get down and quarell everyday, you’re saying prayers to the devil, I say.

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

My father moved to Hawaii from Brooklyn and my mother came there as a child from the Philippines. They met at a show where my dad was playing percussion. My mom was a hula dancer.

No matter how beautiful a woman might be, you’re always threatened by certain… You’re always threatened by other women, period.

I love to flirt, and I’ve never met a man I didn’t like.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

Everything is possible, from angels to demons to economists and politicians.

Phil Niekro and his brother were pitching against each other in Atlanta. Their parents were sitting right behind home plate. I saw their folks more that day than they did the whole weekend.