I have a brother and sister; my mother does not care for thought, and father, too busy with his briefs to notice what we do. He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, because he fears they joggle the mind.

You may be educated abroad, you may be a great scientist, politician, but you always have a sneaking fear that if you don’t go to temples or do the ordinary things that you have been told to do, something evil might happen, so you conform. What happens to the mind that conforms? Investigate it, please.

When your mother asks, ‚Do you want a piece of advice?‘ it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.

By reading, you learn through others‘ experiences, generally, a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

I’ve been my mom’s kitchen helper since I was a little kid.

Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.

It’s so much easier to like people, and to let people in, to trust them until they prove that you should do otherwise. The alternative is being an iceberg.

It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.

‚Lives‘ is one of those books I should really have written when I was younger. It is the classic childhood, adolescence, breakthrough-into-maturity book. Every beginning writer has that material – and after that, you’re not sure what you can do.

My family is very good about visiting me, and other friends as well.

I love making new friends and I respect people for a lot of different reasons.

Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.

Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything.

My daughter doesn’t even get my humor. She’s like, ‚Um, no. I don’t get it, Dad. Mmm, no, not that one, Dad.‘

Too much of what is called ‚education‘ is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.

What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinsfolk.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

Jump out the window if you are the object of passion. Flee it if you feel it. Passion goes, boredom remains.

If I think too hard about a relationship, I’ll talk myself out of it.

One can love a child, perhaps, more deeply than one can love another adult, but it is rash to assume that the child feels any love in return.

My husband and I had to raise five of my younger brothers and sisters. They lived with us. We sent them to school.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

I’m blessed to have such a tight-knit family that we can talk about anything. Whether we talk frequently or not, since we’re on separate ends of the country, there are a lot of moving parts, and we always stay tight and find that center ground that keeps us together.

Sixth grade was a big time, in my childhood, of hoops and friendship, and coming up with funny things.

There’s a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.

My next baby will be my new record.

All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.

You’ve got to invest in the world, you’ve got to read, you’ve got to go to art galleries, you’ve got to find out the names of plants. You’ve got to start to love the world and know about the whole genius of the human race. We’re amazing people.

When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.

Ultimately, education in its real sense is the pursuit of truth. It is an endless journey through knowledge and enlightenment.

Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.

Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent.

I’ve done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.

My upbringing was solid because of the people I had around me.

I’m screamingly funny, you know, I really am in the books. And that helps because I’m funnier than a lot of people, I think, and that’s appreciated by young people.

Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much?

Ever since I dated a woman, I know what it is to grab a curve on a woman’s body. Skinny’s not fine when the lights are low.

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.

Plain women know more about men than beautiful women do.

I love us so incredibly, insanely deeply; it’s almost unbearable to see what we do to ourselves.

I think who you are in school really sticks with you.

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

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

The great thing about having a bunch of kids is they just remind you that you’re the person who takes them to go poop!

We will always be a family. Always.

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

He who is overly attached to his family members experiences fear and sorrow, for the root of all grief is attachment. Thus one should discard attachment to be happy.

I think I’ve got my business notions and my sense for that sort of thing from my dad. My dad never had a chance to go to school. He couldn’t read and write. But he was so smart. He was just one of those people that could just make the most of anything and everything that he had to work with.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

When I am playing baseball, I give it all that I have on the ball field. When the ball game is over, I certainly don’t take it home. My little girl who is sitting out there wouldn’t know the difference between a third strike and a foul ball. We don’t talk about baseball at home.

I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes from. I would like to see small farmers empowered. I feed my daughter almost exclusively organic food.

I hated to be treated as a child. I thought it was the worst situation.

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.

I’m responsible for starting a whole new school of pretension.

The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. That’s one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.

Yes, we’ve still got more work to do. More work to do for every American still in need of a good job or a raise, paid leave or a decent retirement; for every child who needs a sturdier ladder out of poverty or a world-class education; for everyone who has not yet felt the progress of these past seven and a half years.

That summer after the draft was probably the most fun I’ve ever had, because all I had to do every day was wake up and go work out for four or five hours. I got to play some golf, which I love to do, too, and then got to hang out with my family.

When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.

I was called ‚Dumbo,‘ like the elephant, as a child because I couldn’t understand things at school.

The name Zahra was to have been lman’s own name at birth, but a senior member of the family changed it to lman at the last minute.