In order to have friends, you must first be one.

It’s no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.

The capability of negotiating… is something that means you not only have to understand fully what you believe and what your national interests are but in order to be a really good negotiator, you have to try to figure out what the other person on the other side of the table has in mind.

The influence of a mother upon the lives of her children cannot be measured. They know and absorb her example and attitudes when it comes to questions of honesty, temperance, kindness, and industry.

A friend is, as it were, a second self.

I just got to feel that whoever I marry has some real regard for me.

I want to thank God, obviously for the health, for the talent He’s given me, for my family who supports me, for the things that basketball’s taught me on and off the court. For the people that I’ve been able to meet through the game of basketball.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands.

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

Luckily for me, people don’t scream at me that much in my everyday life.

I think women love very hard. We love men. We just love with everything we have. And sometimes, I don’t know that that love is met with the type of dignity that we wish it would be met with.

Poverty breeds despair. We know this. Despair breeds violence. We know this. In turbulent times, isn’t it cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?

Kindness and faithfulness keep a king safe, through kindness his throne is made secure.

Any of us can be happy and have a good attitude when everything is going our way. But I believe it’s the real test of your character and of your faith to say, ‚Things are not going our way, but I’m still being good to people; I’m still attending church; I still have a good attitude.‘

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.

The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren’t in a very good mood.

My mother always taught us that if people don’t agree with you, the important thing is to listen to them. But if you’ve listened to them carefully and you still think that you’re right, then you must have the courage of your convictions.

I’m drawn to bad romances.

I know love is the answer.

There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them.

Dividers seek to make themselves look or feel better by making others feel worse. They damage relationships, fracture teams and organizations, and create havoc in people’s lives.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

I don’t eat with beautiful women alone.

You start to become successful, and everybody starts to drive your money train to the bank, and they’re not thinking anymore about what you want as an artist or if any of that even matters to you. It genuinely upsets people in my life that I don’t care about money, and that’s not my problem.

Most damage that others do us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion.

Polygamy: An endeavour to get more out of life than there is in it.

Marriage is the most wonderful thing ever.

Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious.

I don’t want to tell President Obama how to make a speech. He’s a much better speech maker than I am. But I think always to tell the truth in a sometimes blatant way, even though it might be temporarily unpopular, is the best approach.

I have rules for a lot of areas of my life. Love is not going to be one of them.

Part of our tradition as black women is that we are universalists. Black children, yellow children, red children, brown children, that is the black woman’s normal, day-to-day relationship. In my family alone, we are about four different colors.

It’s amazing if you just listen to people. They tell you all the time things that you can do for them, without even realizing what they’re doing. I’ve learned to take notice of those things and if it’s something that I feel God wants me to do, then I try to do that to add joy to their life.

So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.

If I get married, I want to be very married.

Encouragement to others is something everyone can give. Somebody needs what you have to give. It may not be your money; it may be your time. It may be your listening ear. It may be your arms to encourage. It may be your smile to uplift. Who knows?

What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language.

We want our marriage to be a triumph, not a tragedy.

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.

Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

In football, I don’t have a lot of friends. The people who I really trust, there are not many… Most of the time, I’m alone.

Listen, I think that people want a president who is going to be interested in the things that keep them up at night, the things that are weighing on them, the things that are debilitating and can be addressed.

Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.

It’s better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone – so far.

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

Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

For most of us, relationship with another is based on dependence, either economic or psychological. This dependence creates fear, breeds in us possessiveness, results in friction, suspicion, frustration.

It’s a rather rude gesture, but at least it’s clear what you mean.

Prayer is such a basic foundation of a Christian’s relationship with God. It’s how we communicate and fellowship with Him. But a surprising number of people, young and old, new and even long-time Christians, say they’re not satisfied with their prayer life.

What I have in common with the character in ‚Truman‘ is this incredible need to please people. I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. And I have felt this way ever since all this success started.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Never be so brief as to become obscure.

When you’re around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you’re supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.

You have to listen very carefully and tell the truth if you are going to get a paranoid person to open up to you.