Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.

Love other human beings as you would love yourself.

Every day, my mom and I would watch a different Judy Garland VHS. I love how she tells a story when she sings. It was just about her voice and the words she was singing – no strings attached or silly hair or costumes, just a woman singing her heart out. I feel like that doesn’t happen that much anymore.

When I write, I try to become different characters.

Human beings need stories, and we’re looking for them in all kinds of places; whether it’s television, whether it’s comic books or movies, radio plays, whatever form, people are hungry for stories.

Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.

I have a big gay and lesbian following and they’ve been very loyal and kind to me.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.

Digital technology allows us a much larger scope to tell stories that were pretty much the grounds of the literary media.

I love to watch videos, and I’ve always liked to film and take pictures. I have an eye for really weird things that nobody thinks about. I used to make little movies about myself and then edit them on iMovie.

I’m not searching for hard news; I’m not a journalist, but I’m interested in pushing to boundaries of where we can do the kind of stories that we want to do. I mean, it’s a big world and CNN has made it a lot bigger and they haven’t flinched.

If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water’s edge.

If you wished to be loved, love.

Any hand that I’ve shaken, any person that I met when I was Joe Blow, now that I’m this guy Kevin Hart, has come back. That’s why I treat everybody with respect. I’m always a nice pleasant guy to meet because when they come back to you, they remember.

Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.

George Orwell is half journalist, half fiction writer. I’m 100 percent fiction writer… I don’t want to write messages. I want to write good stories. I think of myself as a political person, but I don’t state my political messages to anybody.

First and foremost, we need to be the adults we want our children to be. We should watch our own gossiping and anger. We should model the kindness we want to see.

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.

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.

I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.

Remind yourself that the greatest technique for bringing peace into your life is to always choose being kind when you have a choice between being right or being kind.

I have a heart of gold, but I’m really a marshmallow in my heart.

From caring comes courage.

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

Don’t throw stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass.

God wants to use you to make other people happy! And the happier you make others, the happier you will be because you reap what you sow.

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.

Image, lyrics, content, storytelling, cohesive body of work – that’s Prince to me.

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

If you give, you will be blessed.

You know those things that you throw the twigs into and it spits them out? That’s what I do. The branches are like life, and I throw them into my head and some of it comes out as humor.

It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.

I once did a three-hour interview with Radio Oxford only to be told the microphone hadn’t picked me up.

When you’re traveling constantly, every day you become inspired, and it shows in my work, sonically, lyrically, visually. Conversations with women with different accents and stories told in those accents. I like to create characters based on different people I’ve met, and relationships. I like to tell stories loosely based on real-life events.

I don’t know the law, the kind of law of quantity and quality, but I think the opportunity of people being able to express themselves and to have the means of production is a great thing. It’s also changing how we’re telling stories.

A writer of fiction is really… a congenital liar who invents from his own knowledge or that of other men.

Everyone has the potential to become an encourager. You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be a genius. You don’t have to have it all together. All you have to do is care about people and initiate.

For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others.

It’s that wonderful old-fashioned idea that others come first and you come second. This was the whole ethic by which I was brought up. Others matter more than you do, so ‚don’t fuss, dear; get on with it.‘

We grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story and the next, and the next.

I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery.

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

A reader can never tell if it’s a real thimble or an imaginary thimble, because by the time you’re reading it, they’re the same. It’s a thimble. It’s in the book.

Films and television and even comic books are churning out vast quantities of fictional narratives, and the public continues to swallow them up with great passion. That is because human beings need stories.

There should be a point to movies. Sure, you’re giving people a diversion from the cold world for a bit, but at the same time, you pass on some facts and rules and maybe a little bit of wisdom.

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

A properly balanced story provides an equal representation of the negative and positive attributes of, I could say the world, but it’s actually a being. ‚Harry Potter“s a good example. So Harry’s the hero, right. But he’s tainted with evil. There’s a dark and a light in every bit of that narrative. It’s well balanced.

Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.

Storytelling is a very old human skill that gives us an evolutionary advantage. If you can tell young people how you kill an emu, acted out in song or dance, or that Uncle George was eaten by a croc over there, don’t go there to swim, then those young people don’t have to find out by trial and error.

I love the movies, and when I go to see a movie that’s been made from one of my books, I know that it isn’t going to be exactly like my novel because a lot of other people have interpreted it. But I also know it has an idea that I’ll like because that idea occurred to me, and I spent a year, or a year and a half of my life working on it.

I would go to the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

Gays are some of the nicest, kindest, most loving people in the world.

There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it.

It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.