A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch them.

Nashville is my home, and the reason why I get to do what I love.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

I’m happiest with my family around me.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

I don’t have to ‚freedom-kiss‘ my wife when what I really want to do is French-kiss her.

I grew up in the golden age of Flash Gordon and sci-fi.

‚Doo-wop‘ is a very special word for me. Because I grew up listening to my dad who, as a Fifties rock & roll head, loved doo-wop music.

I am not very good with relationships. With anyone. I can’t be locked up with anyone for too long.

I’m not denyin‘ the women are foolish. God Almighty made ‚em to match the men.

When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

I remember coming to New York in 1974 to do a play here called ‚Equis.‘ And I remember the first morning getting up and walking around the streets, and I thought, ‚I’m home.‘ I felt really at peace here.

No one can live without relationship. You may withdraw into the mountains, become a monk, a sannyasi, wander off into the desert by yourself, but you are related. You cannot escape from that absolute fact. You cannot exist in isolation.

Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

People react to fear, not love; they don’t teach that in Sunday School, but it’s true.

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.

All the songs I write are about human dynamics, whether it’s with girlfriends, boyfriends, or family.

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.

I was in Europe and it was at this stage that I fell in love with Americans in uniform. And I continue to have that love affair.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

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

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

Husbands are chiefly good as lovers when they are betraying their wives.

I married my best friend that happens to be a girl.

When I get up and work out, I’m working out just as much for my girls as I am for me, because I want them to see a mother who loves them dearly, who invests in them, but who also invests in herself. It’s just as much about letting them know as young women that it is okay to put yourself a little higher on your priority list.

I really thought I was on the way out. My husband Blake saved my life. Often I don’t know what I do, then the next day the memory returns. And then I am engulfed in shame.

I am getting to the point where the only love worth being in is the love worth singing about.

Taxpayers have long memories, especially when it comes to how their hard-earned money is spent.

If you like it you should enjoy it! Moderation in everything. If there’s things you really love, you should enjoy. You get one life, so you should enjoy it.

True friends stab you in the front.

At school I pretended I had a normal life, but I felt lonely all the time and different from everyone else. I never felt like I fit in, and I wasn’t allowed to participate in after-school activities, go to sports events or parties or date boys. Many times I had to make up stories about why I couldn’t do anything with my classmates.

Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.

Death surrenders us totally to God: it makes us enter into him; we must, in return, surrender ourselves to death with absolute love and self-abandonment since, when death comes, all we can do is to surrender ourselves completely to the domination and guidance of God.

It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.

Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

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

Life is relationship, living is relationship. We cannot live if you and I have built a wall around ourselves and just peep over that wall occasionally. Unconsciously, deeply, under the wall, we are related.

As a sportsperson, the best thing is people recognising you and loving you for what you do. For me, glamour is 100 people in the hotel feeling happy to see you.

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

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

Even when I was a kid, everything I had was the best.

Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.

My wife and I are very affectionate.

I’m sick of the tabloids‘ saying I obsess over guys. Why would you obsess over guys? They don’t like it.

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.

Since the beginning, it was just the same. The only difference, the crowds are bigger now.

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.

You know how big love is? Love is big. love can hold anger; love can even hold hatred.

To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.

Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.

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

I had a Super Grover doll growing up. Super Grover was very clumsy, he wasn’t very good-looking. But in his own way he’d always save the day.