I felt I had to solve everyone’s problems.

The only shame is to have none.

There is a tendency for things to right themselves.

I’ve always been – you know, my personality is motivating and encouraging. And so I’m just being who God made me to be.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.

In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start.

Rose Adams is a wonderful Christian woman who cared for my mother, Morrow Coffey Graham, in her last years of life.

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.

I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.

I’m getting a wrinkle above my eyebrow because I just can’t stop lifting it, and I love that you know.

My father was a mean, controlling and manipulative person for most of his life. He was unpredictable and unstable.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

I am tough, but deep inside my toughness, I like to let people know I’m an old-fashioned mama’s boy.

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.

And so I think that the idea of America working with other countries to solve problems is good for us, and it is part of digging us out of the ‚my way or the highway‘ approach that was evident in the previous eight years.

Many people think of perfectionism as striving to be your best, but it is not about self-improvement; it’s about earning approval and acceptance.

It’s a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

It’s rare for a startup to make money immediately, so you need to make sure that you have enough saved or that you have another income stream that can support you.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

The more you seek the uncomfortable, the more you will become comfortable.

I don’t think a lot of people know personally who I am.

We need to, you know, restore people. We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

I’ve been called a recluse. There’s definitely truth in that. I like to spend time alone.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

My son has died of AIDS.

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

Let us fill our hearts with our own compassion – towards ourselves and towards all living beings.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.

How can we help President Obama?

What air is to the body, to feel understood is to the heart.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

Fame is ultimately about the cycles of desire and how to do away with them or manage them well.

One of the huge imbalances in life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have within yourself of some extraordinarily satisfying way of living.

For an author, the nice characters aren’t much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They’re doing it for themselves.

The first step in a person’s salvation is knowledge of their sin.

For so many people, television and movies may be the only way they understand people who aren’t like them.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers.

I met India Arie, who is one of my favorite artists of all time. It was really sweet; I was broken up with a month before, and she stayed up texting me all night and was helping me through it. Her text message looks like a song of hers. She’s sort of become my fairy godmother.

A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

The Occupy movement did create spontaneously communities that taught people something: you can be in a supportive community of mutual aid and cooperation and develop your own health system and library and have open space for democratic discussion and participation. Communities like that are really important.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.

One’s real life is so often the life that one does not lead.

I think I have to trust that you end up with the person you’re supposed to end up with, and that everything in between is there to teach you stuff.

Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.

Have the humility to learn from those around you.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

Satan wants us to constantly focus on everything that is wrong with us and look at how far we still have to go. But God desires for us to rejoice in how far we have already come.

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.