I’m actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions that are unpopular.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

When I write, it’s like choosing which shoes I’m going to put on. More often than not, my lyrics are personal – but I sometimes have to put myself in other people’s shoes.

North Americans don’t understand… that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity.

Do everything as in the eye of another.

I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.

Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open, let us try also to be a church that finds new roads, that is able to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit or are indifferent.

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

We will move forward, we will move upward, and yes, we will move onward.

Even the most seemingly unpleasant situations – if you become aligned with it, something good will emerge from that.

If you’re in trouble, or hurt or need – go to the poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones.

States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

It is true that going out on to the street implies the risk of accidents happening, as they would to any ordinary man or woman. But if the church stays wrapped up in itself, it will age. And if I had to choose between a wounded church that goes out on to the streets and a sick, withdrawn church, I would definitely choose the first one.

You have to give others the opportunity to love who you love. If they don’t accept it, it’s their loss.

Life is relationship, living is relationship. We cannot live if you and I have built a wall around ourselves and just peep over that wall occasionally. Unconsciously, deeply, under the wall, we are related.

I actually feel like women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain when we consider all of the people who are really struggling and don’t have the means or support. Many people are single, raising children. That’s hard.

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents‘ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.

You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.

We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old – and that’s the criterion by which I’ll be selecting my judges.

It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow’s viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences.

Instead of judging people, we need to pray.

When you love and accept yourself, when you know who really cares about you, and when you learn from your mistakes, then you stop caring about what people who don’t know you think.

Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.

It’s nice to be included in people’s fantasies but you also like to be accepted for your own sake.

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

Meditation demands an astonishingly alert mind; it is the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation has ceased.

If you are not being bullied all I would say – cause I like to talk about the other side of it as well – is you know, be someone that nurtures, and if there’s someone in your class that maybe doesn’t have a lot of friends, be the person that sits with them in the cafeteria sometimes; be the bigger person.

When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.

I do have a lot of gays in my family now, but some will never come out.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

To me, it’s OK to have differences. But we don’t have to be mad about it. You know? And I think that’s where sometimes we get so passionate that we – you know, it turns into anger.

That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity’s small change in general society.

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!

Most people are happy being average. Most are happy being faceless in a sea of faces.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

I sang a song at my sister’s wedding. My mother forced me into that, too. But that one felt all right.

Certainly I’ll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I’ve gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.

Never find fault with the absent.

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.

Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

I am not promising that God will give you everything you want. There are times when we want things that God knows would not be good for us.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another – until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.

I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these ‚how‘ and ‚why‘ questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.

Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.

I love reading people. I really enjoy watching, observing, and being able to figure out a person, the reason they wore that dress, the reason they smell the way they do.

What’s important for my daughter to know is that… if you are fortunate to have opportunity, it is your duty to make sure other people have those opportunities as well.

I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career. You learn a lot from it.