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?

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is ‚elephant‘.

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.

Seeing is not always believing.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression – all of that is very important.

I’ll think I have a few wonderful friends and all of a sudden, ooh, here it comes. They do a lot of things. They talk about you to the press, to their friends, tell stories, and you know, it’s disappointing.

If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

When you make as many speeches and you talk as much as I do and you get away from the text, it’s always a possibility to get a few words tangled here and there.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

Your Highest Self is not just an idea that sounds lofty and spiritual. It is a way of being. It is the very first principle that you must come to understand and embrace as you move toward attracting to you that which you want and need for this parenthesis in eternity that you know as your life.

When you get into your car, shut the door and be there for just half a minute. Breathe, feel the energy inside your body, look around at the sky, the trees. The mind might tell you, ‚I don’t have time.‘ But that’s the mind talking to you. Even the busiest person has time for 30 seconds of space.

No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don’t function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick.

People say that about me, that I apparently buy houses near every boy I like – that’s a thing that I apparently do. If I like you I will apparently buy up the real-estate market just to freak you out so you leave me.

There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.

I can walk through a hotel lobby and watch people at the desk and see what they’re doing. People don’t look at me. They don’t even know I’m there.

I’m grateful for always this moment, the now, no matter what form it takes.

He was so depressed, he tried to commit suicide by inhaling next to an Armenian.

You aren’t learning anything when you’re talking.

I want to let you in on a little secret: I don’t always feel like I’m a success. That’s right. There are plenty of times when I feel like I’ve just totally messed up and failed to connect with the people I’m trying to communicate with.

The difference between a stranger sending you a message that you might be interested in at a very low volume level, no repetition, just sending it to very few people, and that being done as spam – those things get close enough that you want to be careful never to filter out something that’s legitimate.

The African is my brother but he is my younger brother by several centuries.

I just feel like, with rappers, there’s so much complacency. It’s like, ‚Oh, I’m a rapper. I’m successful. I make money. That’s all that matters.‘ But there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world. Whether or not you’re aware of it, it’s happening.

Some people say that I should study to become a climate scientist so that I can ‚solve the climate crisis.‘ But the climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change.

Even if the economy crashes, we will still burn oil.

It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

When anger rises, think of the consequences.

The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

Whoever does not have a good father should procure one.

I sent one e-mail in my life. I sent it to Jeff Raikes at Microsoft, and it ended up in court in Minneapolis, so I am one for one.

I feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents. Primarily because of the activism and the injection of working at the Carter Center, and in international affairs, and to some degree, domestic affairs, on energy conservation, on environment, and things of that kind.

Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

Marriage is scary to me, man.

Absolutely not. I have no problem with commitment. In fact, I love having someone in my life.

The best way to resolve any problem in the human world is for all sides to sit down and talk.

The AIDS is a disease that is hard to talk about.

There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row.

I’ve found that men I’ve dated who are in the same business can be really competitive. I’ve found a great group of girlfriends in the same business who aren’t competitive, but a few times guys have started comparing careers and it has been… challenging.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.

What you guys want, I’m for.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

I think we all change each other’s paths. I don’t know which law idea that is in physics, but I don’t think any of us can live without affecting one another.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it’s how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.

You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.

A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.

I’ve never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a ‚fat cat‘ and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a ‚public-spirited philanthropist‘.

I don’t have this feeling that 70 is really old.

I don’t think about the end game. I’ve got lots to occupy my mind. It’s the rage that keeps me going.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases – one was Alzheimer’s, and the other was knowing I had Alzheimer’s.

Clean fighting solves everything. It ends all bad blood and any ill feelings people have. That’s my thoughts.

I never deny. I never contradict. I sometimes forget.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.