Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.

I really didn’t consider myself happy or unhappy.

Love is the missing factor; there is a lack of affection, of warmth in relationship; and because we lack that love, that tenderness, that generosity, that mercy in relationship, we escape into mass action, which produces further confusion, further misery.

I think that cancer is a life form that exists out there, and it exists in us. I think even the concept of healing is a spiritual principle that we have to really look at. I think the word itself is something we ought to get rid of, because it implies that there is illness – that there is something wrong.

And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

Women have always been the strong ones of the world. The men are always seeking from women a little pillow to put their heads down on. They are always longing for the mother who held them as infants.

I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

No, we don’t own our children. Our parental privilege is to love them, to lead them, and to let them go.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

If you were the President of the United States or the Queen of England – you couldn’t have a person who would be more protective than my mother was for me. Which meant really that I could dare to do all sorts of things.

Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them.

I went through every emotion with tryna pursue what I’m doing, you know what I mean? And I think what’s gon‘ separate whoever’s gon go for something, that you ain’t gon‘ quit.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

In the course of a marriage, one accommodates the other.

It destroys one’s nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

Grace is not part of consciousness; it is the amount of light in our souls, not knowledge nor reason.

After Hiroshima was bombed, I saw a photograph of the side of a house with the shadows of the people who had lived there burned into the wall from the intensity of the bomb. The people were gone, but their shadows remained.

There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

Country radio is much more like a family than any other group of people that I’ve met.

I was ready to quit music. It felt to me like music equalled death.

To feel not only submitted but willing to be anything or nothing as the Lord wills it – this is, in truth, to sing a song to our Well Beloved.

Sisters are brittle things. God was penurious with me, which makes me shrewd with Him. One is a dainty sum! One bird, one cage, one flight; one song in those far woods, as yet suspected by faith only!

We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.

Anxiety and spiritual searching have been consistent themes with me, and that figures into my worldview. But I tend to make my songs sound like relationship songs.

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‚why?‘ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‚why not?‘

Falling in love and having a relationship are two different things.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

I don’t see that my majority opinions are going to be undone.

When someone is impatient and says, ‚I haven’t got all day,‘ I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day?

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.

Hear reason, or she’ll make you feel her.

Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.

What I’ve discovered is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth-and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.

I think that you can love people without it being the great love.

Only the really plain people know about love – the very fascinating ones try so hard to create an impression that they soon exhaust their talents.

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.

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.

Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

Christmas is joy, religious joy, an inner joy of light and peace.

When you are young, you cannot imagine being disabled. You imagine you would conquer it somehow. As I’ve got older, I can imagine it; I can see how life narrows in. I feel compassion for my mother now.

Mine is only one of the millions of hearts broken over the death of Whitney Houston, I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song, and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, ‚Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.‘

Few people have the imagination for reality.

Sometimes I’ve been to a party where no one spoke to me for a whole evening. The men, frightened by their wives or sweeties, would give me a wide berth. And the ladies would gang up in a corner to discuss my dangerous character.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

Whoever does not have a good father should procure one.

Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

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.

Woman begins by resisting a man’s advances and ends by blocking his retreat.

Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough.

There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.

All of the people in my life whom I consider to be close friends or colleagues are good thinkers.