Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you.

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.‘

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

To find out your real opinion of someone, judge the impression you have when you first see a letter from them.

If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

If you can’t hear me, it’s because I’m in parentheses.

It’s considered acceptable in our culture to approach perfect strangers, as often or not who may be in extremis, and evangelise. I don’t see why that’s considered a normal thing.

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.

I was very worried about my mother, growing up – a lot. I do not want my children to be worried about me.

Swearing is industry language. For as long as we’re alive it’s not going to change. You’ve got to be boisterous to get results.

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.

I did my utmost to ensure that everyone below me in the chain of command felt comfortable approaching me with concerns, ideas, thoughts, and even disagreements.

The prospect of dating someone in her twenties becomes less appealing as you get older. At some point in your life, your tolerance level goes down and you realize that, with someone much younger, there’s nothing really to talk about.

What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.

In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.

To be social is to be forgiving.

I can express myself.

When I was young, an eccentric uncle decided to teach me how to lie. Not, he explained, because he wanted me to lie, but because he thought I should know how it’s done so I would recognise when I was being lied to.

Modern cynics and skeptics… see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.

Just because you like my stuff doesn’t mean I owe you anything.

I always wanted to be a father and thought it would be great, but it just took the right woman and the right time to make it all happen.

Everything I do, I hope, is that I represent something, and I represent the right things to my children and give them the right sense of what they’re capable of and the world as it should be seen.

Men must know their limitations.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity.

Among the letters my readers write me, there is a certain category which is continuously growing, and which I see as a symptom of the increasing intellectualization of the relationship between readers and literature.

I mean, I look at my dad. He was twenty when he started having a family, and he was always the coolest dad. He did everything for his kids, and he never made us feel like he was pressured. I know that it must be a great feeling to be a guy like that.

I have made the mistaken assumption – and I will attempt to be better at this – of thinking that because somebody is on Twitter and is attacking me that it is open season. And that is my mistake.

Both times I was in India, I could not get people to listen to each other. I had to literally tell people to listen to each other and tell them that they can’t get creative and find alternate solutions if they don’t listen to each other. There’s a lot of arguing and justifying.

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

A mother defends herself with a heart filled with love before doing so with words. I wonder whether there is any love for the church in the hearts of those who pay so much attention to the scandals.

If you want to get each individual’s honest opinion, you don’t want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.

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

There are some important differences between me and Tony Stark, like I have five kids, so I spend more time going to Disneyland than parties.

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

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

I have ‚Parents‘ magazine in my home.

Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

I’ve never been pregnant, so I just feel God didn’t mean for me to have kids so that everybody else’s children could be mine.

I like learning more about people; I like to talk to people.

Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.

If you’re a politician, you might want to learn the Buddhist way of negotiation. Restoring communication and bringing back reconciliation is clear and concrete in Buddhism.

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.

Sometimes I’ve been to a party where no one spoke to me for a whole evening. The men, frightened by their wives or sweeties, would give me a wide berth. And the ladies would gang up in a corner to discuss my dangerous character.

While I believed deeply in my husband’s vision for this country… and I was certain he would make an extraordinary President… like any mother, I was worried about what it would mean for our girls if he got that chance. How would we keep them grounded under the glare of the national spotlight?

It’s not proper for the government to intrude too thoroughly into the domain of the family. It’s inappropriate.

Part of what confuses people in times of upheaval is that you’re getting so many different points of view and directions and so and so, how to do this and do that. And a lot of it is written in a language that honestly most people cannot understand.

I try to speak in a way that people can understand.

Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.

Giving responsibility is the key to success with boys, especially with the rowdiest and most difficult boys.

Silence is argument carried out by other means.

I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.

If you’re yelling you’re the one who’s lost control of the conversation.

At best, the renewal of broken relations is a nervous matter.

I am an introvert; privately I am very shy, and I don’t speak unless I have to.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression – all of that is very important.

The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.