Someday I want to have children and give them all the love I never had.

I didn’t have any children of my own.

Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.

Love is not altogether a delirium, yet it has many points in common therewith.

A lot of us grow up and we grow out of the literal interpretation that we get when we’re children, but we bear the scars all our life. Whether they’re scars of beauty or scars of ugliness, it’s pretty much in the eye of the beholder.

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.

This healthy eating stuff, it’s here to stay, and we now have everything we need to seize the opportunity and give all our kids the healthy futures they so richly deserve.

I’m sorry, it’s true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We’re born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It’s been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much – if at all.

Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts.

A family looks for ways to support and inspire one another.

No matter what, I always make it home for Christmas. I love to go to my Tennessee Mountain Home and invite all of my nieces and nephews and their spouses and kids and do what we all like to do – eat, laugh, trade presents and just enjoy each other… and sometimes I even dress up like Santa Claus!

I was in a terrible mess in my childhood.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

I dream of a church that is a mother and shepherdess.

You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally.

I did stand-up for my grandparents every day when I was, like, eight.

I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people that have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about.

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.

If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one.

O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it.

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.

People think, because we’re young, we aren’t complex, but that’s not true. We deal with life and love and broken hearts in the same way a woman a few years older might.

The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.

Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading through uncertainty and self-doubt when it comes to raising our children.

For me, the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It’s enough. I’m enough. My kids are enough.

For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.

I didn’t start sweating until I had children. That was one of the first things I realized when my daughter Violet was born – I started getting wicked BO. You know there’s a difference between basketball BO and stress BO? This was definitely stress BO. Like, new dad BO.

I’ve never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I’ve only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays… and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God. For me, at least, it got in the way.

We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.

Everywhere I go I find that people… both leaders and individuals… are asking one basic question, ‚Is there any hope for the future?‘ My answer is the same, ‚Yes, through Jesus Christ.‘

The male, for all his bravado and exploration, is the loyal one, the one who generally feels love. The female is skilled at betrayal and torture and damnation.

If you can’t read, it’s going to be hard to realize dreams.

They are resilient children, but they are children, and as much as they need help to understand the hard truths in life, they also need what we all need – protection and love.

The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.

Love is not consolation. It is light.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.

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

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

It is a true rule that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque or with an inward and secret contempt.

Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

I have 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and they keep me young.

He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

My son’s full real name is Duncan Zowie Haywood. As a toddler, he was called by his second name Zowie. But it was such an identifiable name during the Seventies that if I called him loudly in public places, everyone would turn to stare, so I started calling him Joey to take the pressure off.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

Plumbers can be masters, the guy who did my patio is a master, some people are masters at raising really great children.

I continue to care for President Obama and for his family. I think that in many ways they are very courageous people, and I honor that, because I know what it means to live as a black person in a racist America.

When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said – and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded – ‚It’s like hair color. It’s nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It’s not a subject.‘ This was a very healthy attitude.

God’s dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.

When I was a kid, I read the science-fiction shelves, and I read the fantasy shelves.

My mother was a powerful influence. She made me toe the line. If I didn’t have a perfect report card, she showed her disappointment.

To love someone means to see him as God intended him.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.