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.‘

People are very reluctant to talk about their private lives but then you go to the internet and they’re much more open.

She would have thrived as a grandmother. I know how much she would have contributed to their lives, and I am sad they will miss out on that.

Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one’s own desires through which one listens.

In my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.

The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.

The man of life upright has a guiltless heart, free from all dishonest deeds or thought of vanity.

People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people – and that social norm is just something that has evolved over time.

You send a boy to school in order to make friends – the right sort.

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

I’m sure most parents read to their children to explain what certain things mean. So books are a good way to convey a message to anybody. Everybody reads.

My name can’t be that tough to pronounce!

I was extremely lucky that I had two great wives. It sounds a bit funny to say that, but it’s absolutely true.

I am not a crook.

Words are more powerful than some noises. Noises won’t last long. Lyrics are so important, and people don’t realise that.

I just hope people don’t get sick of us. I’m sick of us and I’m in Destiny’s Child.

You have to listen very carefully and tell the truth if you are going to get a paranoid person to open up to you.

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

It is the most sensual men who need to flee women and torment their bodies.

Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go its pretty damn good.

It’s not possible to stop love.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

There was my name up in lights. I said, ‚God, somebody’s made a mistake.‘ But there it was, in lights. And I sat there and said, ‚Remember, you’re not a star.‘ Yet there it was up in lights.

Tell your wife often how terrific she looks.

I like someone who is a little crazy but coming from a good place. I think scars are sexy because it means you made a mistake that led to a mess.

When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it.

If you’re talking to a man who wouldn’t fight with you under any circumstances whatsoever, then you’re talking to someone for whom you have absolutely no respect.

Since the child knew his parents would give in, he tried the same trick again and again.

A man is more frank and sincere with his emotions than a woman. We girls, I’m afraid, have a tendency to hide our feelings.

I do think that we’re gonna move towards this world where eventually you’ll be able to capture a whole experience that you’re in and be able to send that to someone.

A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

I’ve lost both parents in the last two years, so you pick up on that stuff. That’s the most terrible thing about being an author – standing there at your mother’s funeral, but you don’t switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill.

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right.

I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

No such thing as a man willing to be honest – that would be like a blind man willing to see.

Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.

My dad was never married. He was kind of a rolling stone. But he was never disrespectful. At the same time, even though he had women in his life when I was a kid, there wasn’t any consistency.

Stage actors are usually much more conscious of speaking up and making sure that everyone can hear in the back of the theatre; a film actor probably thinks of that a little less.

I want my kids to see me as Dad, for God’s sake, not a television personality.

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

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.

My mama never wore a pair of pants when I was growing up, and now that’s all she wears. It was so funny for me when I first started seeing Mama wear pants. It was like it wasn’t Mama. Now I’ve bought her many a pantsuit because she just lives in them.

A friend is, as it were, a second self.

If thy brother wrongs thee, remember not so much his wrong-doing, but more than ever that he is thy brother.

I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.

Our affections as well as our bodies are in perpetual flux.

When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.

It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.

A lot of the time when I write about the person that I love, I feel like I’m writing about New York.

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

Logically, harmony must come from the heart… Harmony very much based on trust. As soon as use force, creates fear. Fear and trust cannot go together.

Your children will see what you’re all about by what you live rather than what you say.

It’s hard for me to grasp the concept of somebody being nervous when I’m talking to them.

Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

My whole family are hams. They’re storytellers and everyone outdoes the next one.

My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn’t have any money, because Africa was the ‚dark continent‘, and because I was a girl.

This character feels so much like my brother. He has two children. He has a wife. He works with me. He chooses to stay in New Hampshire because he wants his kids to grow up in the school they started with. He doesn’t want them to lose friends. He is his family’s hero.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

It’s annoying, but justice and equality are mates. Aren’t they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.