Sooner or later we’re all someone’s dog.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

You can be young without money but you can’t be old without it.

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do. That you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.

I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.

I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.

When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.

The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colours and textures that come alive in others.

I try to look on all the great things God’s done, and not focus on the negative. It’s a perspective.

Every wall is a door.

Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone’s singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person.

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.

The greatest enemy to human souls is the self-righteous spirit which makes men look to themselves for salvation.

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.

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.

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.

People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore those who have ears and hear nothing; they shall burn lamps for those who do not see.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

I’m married to an Italian woman, and I used to love cooking Italian at home, because it’s one-pot cooking. But my wife does not approve of my Italian cooking.

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

Amour is the one human activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, if ever so slightly, over misery and pain.

There are definitely people who disagree with certain creative decisions you make. Pleasing everyone is pretty hard.

The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.

I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

No matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it.

We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal’s ‚Pensees‘ and read, ‚I am the great silent spaces between worlds.‘

How do you know what it’s like to be stupid if you’ve never been smart?

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

I know when I grew up, it was, if it was daylight outside, get outside. Well, now, with the technological age of computers and everything, everyone’s inside virtually going everywhere they want to go, virtually having relationships, virtually traveling across the neighborhood, virtually going to that island.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

I think daughters can change the perception of their fathers.

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.

The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.

Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.

I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.

When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her.

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.

For so many people, television and movies may be the only way they understand people who aren’t like them.

Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned.

I’m not happy all the time, and I wouldn’t want to be because that would make me a shallow person. But I do try to find the good in everybody.

Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competition, training counted more than intrinsic ability, and I could compensate for a lack of natural aptitude with diligence and discipline. I applied this in everything I did.

You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.