I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind.

If someone lies, well, you had a choice to trust that person or not. I think the way my father raised me, well, he trusted everybody. And that worked for him.

Like every parent, when you start your family, your life completely changes. And you completely live for someone else. I find that the most extraordinary thing. Your life is handed over to someone else. From that moment on, they come first in every choice you make. It’s the most wonderful thing.

If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.

I have discovered that my interest in my dear pupil, Mabel, has ripened into a far deeper feeling than that of mere friendship. In fact, I know that I have learned to love her very sincerely.

You know how big love is? Love is big. love can hold anger; love can even hold hatred.

Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.

Love is too young to know what conscience is.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

We can continue to learn generation after generation and now is time to begin to learn how to love in a non-discriminatory way because we are intelligent enough, but we are not loving enough as a species.

God is so big. It’s a gigantic concept in God. The idea that God might love us and be interested in us is kind of huge and gigantic, but we turn it, because we’re small-minded, into this tiny, petty, often greedy version of God, that is religion.

I’m not great at bedtime stories. Bedtime stories are supposed to put the kid to sleep. My kid gets riled up and then my wife has to come in and go, ‚All right! Get out of the room.‘

Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that’s true of everyone, don’t you?

If I’m not in love, if I’m not with a long-term companion, I cannot be happy.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don’t just want to possess it, it will find you.

I like criticism. It makes you strong.

A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income.

Whenever something went wrong when I was young – if I had a pimple or if my hair broke – my mom would say, ‚Sister mine, I’m going to make you some soup.‘ And I really thought the soup would make my pimple go away or my hair stronger.

We do not judge the people we love.

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

You send a boy to school in order to make friends – the right sort.

In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: ‚We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.‘

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

No man wants to settle down. It happens. Eventually you’re going to bump into somebody that makes you go, ‚Hmm, I don’t mind seeing this person every day.‘

Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

My wife has about everything I can think of.

My enthusiasm seems to cause my world to endlessly offer me cooperative, co-creating experiences. I’m willing and I’m eager, and not just about my writing – I feel the same way about staying in shape, enjoying my family, giving a lecture, or whatever it may be.

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.

A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.

There’s a deceptive sin that can keep us from walking in love: pride. It’s deceptive because when you have pride, you’re usually too proud to admit it. I know this because I used to have teachings on pride and they didn’t sell well.

We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn’t a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith.

Making your dad happy is – especially for an Italian Catholic girl, I’ll tell you – it feels really good.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

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

Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.

They are resilient children, but they are children, and as much as they need help to understand the hard truths in life, they also need what we all need – protection and love.

Everything is clearer when you’re in love.

I want to work; then, as my kids get older, I want to have adventures. I want to visit all their countries: learn and live inside all their cultures.

I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: ‚Checkout Time is 18 years.‘

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses will be all the stronger for working together and sharing the load.

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.

Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn’t enough and you have to go and get shot or something.

I have a family, loving aunts, and a good home. No, on the surface I seem to have everything except my one true friend. All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time. I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem.

You can’t blame gravity for falling in love.

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.

To rule children by force is the technique of Satan, not of the Savior.

I definitely don’t think that money can buy you love. It can buy you affection but certainly not love.

The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you, and all it contains.

I don’t like to beat people down. They need to be lifted up.

Pfft, I hate Christmas Day. It’s for children and families. Not for people like me.

I am a very emotional guy. What I love, I do with all I have.

People think, because we’re young, we aren’t complex, but that’s not true. We deal with life and love and broken hearts in the same way a woman a few years older might.

I’m focusing on me. I’m focusing on my family’s security, my family’s financial security, so that’s all I can do.