I never thought I’d have children; I never thought I’d be in love, I never thought I’d meet the right person. Having come from a broken home – you kind of accept that certain things feel like a fairy tale, and you just don’t look for them.

If my mother knew I did this for a living, she’d kill me. She thinks I’m selling dope.

Real magic in relationships means an absence of judgment of others.

Intimates are predestined.

Marrying an old bachelor is like buying second-hand furniture.

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.

There’s nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is.

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.

Upon the farm of the uncle with whom I lived, we did know of the mortgage as some dreadful damper on youthful hopes of things that could not be bought. I do have a vivid recollection that the major purpose of a farm was to produce a living right on the spot for the family.

All my momma’s people were very musical. My grandpa, who was the Pentecostal minister, he was a great musician. He played the fiddle, he played the piano.

When you face a ‚performance‘ that might provoke the ‚I’m scared‘ response, choose love and approach your opportunity as a chance to dance with God. It’s more fun than ‚Dancing with the Stars!‘

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

Women may fall when there’s no strength in men.

A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch them.

I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. First, let her think she’s having her own way. And second, let her have it.

He who lives in our mind is near though he may actually be far away; but he who is not in our heart is far though he may really be nearby.

The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous.

If you want to become fully mature in the Lord, you must learn to love truth. Otherwise, you will always leave open a door of deception for the enemy to take what is meant to be yours.

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

If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.

Who shall measure the hat and violence of the poet’s heart when caught and tangled in a woman’s body?

Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

I listen to my mother, and that keeps me out of trouble. I’m a good son.

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.

Unfortunately, the highly curious student is a small percentage of the kids.

I never promise anything. I don’t promise anything to my mum. I don’t promise anything to the supporters.

Freedom conceives that the mind and spirit of man can be free only if he be free to pattern his own life, to develop his own talents, free to earn, to spend, to save, to acquire property as the security of his old age and his family.

The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn’t let them into the family brokerage business.

God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, ‚I love you.‘

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

I know that I’m not the easiest person to live with. The challenge I put on myself is so great that the person I live with feels himself challenged. I bring a lot to bear, and I don’t know how not to.

Accident counts for as much in companionship as in marriage.

Be a force of love as often as you can and turn away negative thoughts whenever you feel them surface.

He that loves to be flattered is worthy o‘ the flatterer.

Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.

There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire; it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism.

I grew up upper-class. Private school. My dad had a Jaguar. We’re African-American, and we work together as a family, so people assume we’re like the Jacksons. But I didn’t have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.

Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty.

Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.

The ‚Billionaire‘ song is what my kids tease me with. They sing it to me. It’s funny.

I always thought money was something just to make me happy. But I’ve learned that I feel better being able to help my folks, ‚cause we never had nothing. So just to see them excited about my career is more of a blessing than me actually having it for myself.

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.

I know that a large part of my fan base is gay. They’ve shown me love from the start. I mean in this industry, everyone from my glam people to my dancers are gay. You can’t be homophobic in this line of work – I’m a pop star!

Youngsters of the age of two and three are endowed with extraordinary strength. They can lift a dog twice their own weight and dump him into the bathtub.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Man and animals are in reality vehicles and conduits of food, tombs of animals, hostels of Death, coverings that consume, deriving life by the death of others.

A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

If you’re talking to a man who wouldn’t fight with you under any circumstances whatsoever, then you’re talking to someone for whom you have absolutely no respect.

He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed.

If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were.

Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it.

Everyone got kind of crazy with me mentioning I was in love with a woman.

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.

A family looks for ways to support and inspire one another.

My husband’s a pediatrician, so he and I talk about parenting all the time. You can’t raise children who have more shame resilience than you do.

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

I believe in love at first sight. You want that connection, and then you want some problems.