I came to China to follow my star and to steep myself in the raw regions of the universe.

I’ve searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.

I found that part of it towards San Salvador extending from north to south five leagues, and the other side which we coasted along, ran from east to west more than ten leagues.

Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll be a great actress.

You go back to the 17th century, the commercial and industrial centers of the world were China and India.

The truth is, I had always wanted to be a comedian, but I really didn’t have that kind of personality, and it’s a terrifying thing to say.

We think that life develops spontaneously on Earth, so it must be possible for life to develop on suitable planets elsewhere in the universe. But we don’t know the probability that a planet develops life.

If you realize all the time what’s kind of wonderful – that is, if we expand our experience into wilder and wilder regions of experience – every once in a while, we have these integrations when everything’s pulled together into a unification, in which it turns out to be simpler than it looked before.

I love to travel, but hate to arrive.

I’m first and foremost a writer. I followed my personal legend, my childhood dream of becoming a writer, but I can’t say why I’m one.

I’m not someone who sits at home and doesn’t like to go out, doesn’t like to watch movies. I like to live my life.

It was Einstein’s dream to discover the grand design of the universe, a single theory that explains everything. However, physicists in Einstein’s day hadn’t made enough progress in understanding the forces of nature for that to be a realistic goal.

I would like to go back to Wales. I’m obsessed with my childhood and at least three times a week dream I am back there.

I never go anywhere. I do sketches and make phone calls, and people visit. It’s more fun to come to Paris.

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do, the library and journalism, those things made me who I am.

God made me and broke the mold.

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.

China has many successful entrepreneurs and business people. I hope that more people of insight will put their talents to work to improve the lives of poor people in China and around the world, and seek solutions for them.

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

A sense of the universe, a sense of the all, the nostalgia which seizes us when confronted by nature, beauty, music – these seem to be an expectation and awareness of a Great Presence.

Exploration by real people inspires us.

I found it hard to be young. When I was married in my twenties, I hated being regarded as ‚the little wife.‘ You don’t know what it was like then! I’d never even written a cheque. I had to ask my husband for money for groceries.

I even found it difficult to watch myself playing on TV because I couldn’t identify with the person on the screen. I couldn’t get to grips with it. It was as if it was all happening to someone else.

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.

I first had the idea of writing a popular book about the universe in 1982. My intention was partly to earn money to pay my daughter’s school fees.

There is neither spirit nor matter in the world. The stuff of the universe is spirit-matter. No other substance but this could have produced the human molecule.

I specifically did not read other First Ladies‘ books, because I didn’t want to be influenced by how they defined the role. I knew that I would have to find this role – very uniquely and specifically to me and who I was.

One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.

Somewhere deep down there’s a decent man in me, he just can’t be found.

China and the U.S. need each other very badly. Yes, we should argue about some things, but it’s not an ‚us versus them,‘ it’s an ‚us and them‘ type scenario.

Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.

I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

My desire was not to pass any island without taking possession, so that, one having been taken, the same may be said of all.

Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.

I had nothing growing up, but I always wanted to be ‚sexy,‘ even before I knew what the word was.

Countries which receive aid do graduate. Within a generation, Korea went from being a big recipient to being a big aid donor. China used to get quite a bit of aid; now it’s aid-neutral.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

The feeling is constantly growing on me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another.

Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.

Women have a certain sexuality, and I think their bodies are beautiful, and I’m not embarrassed to explore that in a film. But there are things you get offered that are vulgar and violent – just like there’s a side of me that’s vulgar and violent.

It was weird to be married; you kind of lose your identity. You’re suddenly somebody’s wife. And you’re like, ‚Oh, I’m half of a couple now. I’ve lost me.‘

I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a ‚one size fits all‘ standard for happiness.

Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.

I really miss having a routine because now I’ve been on the road constantly for several months. I like routines, so it would be nice to get those routines back.

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.

I hope to play until I’m, like, 38 or something, and that’s a lot of years in the game and a lot of travel and a lot of sacrifice on my family’s part.

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

Chaos is a friend of mine.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

It has been hard for me to find it, but I have found love.

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.