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.

I feel connected to my generation through the music, but I also fear for us. We’re in a very self-destructive state where we’re addicted to outside opinions and we all feel like we have fans.

I wanted to be a skinny little ballerina but I was a voluptuous little Italian girl whose dad had meatballs on the table every night.

For all the supporters of Tesla over the years, and it’s been several years now and there have been some very tough times, I’d just like to say thank you very much. I deeply appreciate the support, particularly through the darkest times.

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.

A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.

There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Our schools and colleges are turning out people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.

It would have been difficult to have an ugly daughter.

Remind yourself that winning an argument or proving your point really gets you nowhere in the long run. Win through your actions, not your words.

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

There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell-and then nothing ever really happens. I’m not like that I never shoot blanks.

I just think you ought to talk straight with your people.

I am proud to have been born in Iowa. Through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, it was a place of adventure and daily discoveries – the wonder of the growing crops, the excitements of the harvest, the journeys to the woods for nuts and hunting, the joys of snowy winters, the comfort of the family fireside, of good food and tender care.

Doing Saturday Night Live definitely affects my relationship with my girlfriend and with my family, because you feel so much pressure to do well that night. But I think everyone’s grown to accept that and so they give me my space at the show.

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.

Tell them to send everything that can fly.

To hold a man down, you have to stay down with him.

I try to speak in everyday language. I feel like God has gifted me to take Bible principles and make them practical.

Never ask anyone over 70 how they feel. They’ll tell you.

My mother told me, ‚Son, nobody else but God knows.‘ And that’s what I’m about – reaching out to the people, crying with them, giving them hope. Visiting the hospital, visiting the kids with cancer, visiting the adults, and stuff like that. That’s what I do.

My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim.

I’m just glad I was able to return to some of that innocence and beauty I had as a child when I started my own family, and my children brought me back some of that spirit.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

I was brought up as an only child, and we were very close. But when I was 14, we got evicted. We came home to a padlock, and I looked up at my mom and she was crying, and there was nothing to do.

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.

At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes.

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

I think sometimes the critics want me to beat people down, and that’s not in me. I want to lift people up.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.

Our veterans who fall on hard times and find themselves without a home deserve more than just handwringing or kind words. They deserve real help that gets them back on their feet.

Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.

You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment.

One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.

My father, who was jailed for stealing on more than one occasion, just abandoned his fatherly responsibilities and disappeared. I grew up working from the time I was nine years of age. Money was a big issue everywhere I lived.

There’s no political point worth my son’s life.

I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.

Thank God, I never was cheerful. I come from the happy stock of the Mathers, who, as you remember, passed sweet mornings reflecting on the goodness of God and the damnation of infants.

We live in an image society. Speeches are not what anybody cares about; what they care about is the picture.

Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.

Just talk to me as a father – not what the Constitution says. What do you feel?

I refuse to feel guilty. I feel guilty about too much in my life but not about money. I went through periods when I had nothing, so somebody in my family has to get stinkin‘ wealthy.

The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it’s usually lousy.

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.

I never saw any of my dad’s stories. My mother said he had piles and piles of manuscripts.

Every great person is always being helped by everybody; for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.

My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it’s just kind of been like my habitat.

Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

Clearly this is a tough economic time, and a lot of families are hurting. So when we talk to parents, we talk about small changes for kids and things that don’t cost extra money. Like adding water and eliminating sugary drinks and sodas. That’s going to save money right there. Or adding a few more vegetables.

I like learning more about people; I like to talk to people.

Without tact you can learn nothing.

Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone.

It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer’s you are an old fart. That’s how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.

I wanted to be a doctor that I might be able to work without having to talk because for years I had been giving myself out in words.

The answer to the problem of inequality is for the people who are fortunate enough to either have been gifted or deserved more to do everything they can to make the communities around them as strong as they possibly can.

I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn’t going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I’ve ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn’t want to do whatever he did. So after that, I switched to Communications.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

Being flooded with information doesn’t mean we have the right information or that we’re in touch with the right people.