The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

The tradition of the South is not urban… I think we are a region of storytellers, naturally, just from our tribal instincts. We did not have the pleasures of the theater or the dance, motion pictures when they came along. We simply entertain each other by talking.

Regarding marriage, it – somehow, it didn’t happen. One fellow in such a big family not getting married is not an issue.

My enthusiasm seems to cause my world to endlessly offer me cooperative, co-creating experiences. I’m willing and I’m eager, and not just about my writing – I feel the same way about staying in shape, enjoying my family, giving a lecture, or whatever it may be.

I want kids. I want a soccer team, and I want a husband.

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.

My mother was and will always remain my greatest hero.

My mom and my dad were both very sociable, meeting lots of interesting people.

Love is an interesting thing. Perhaps I’ve never been in love before – I don’t really know? I think I have. I guess it’s subjective in that way.

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

Part of my ancestry is Cherokee. And in that tradition, you become an adult when you’re 52.

To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!

People like to hear the word ‚love.‘

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

I have a big gay and lesbian following and they’ve been very loyal and kind to me.

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.

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

Where fear is, happiness is not.

They’ll forget all the rubbish when I’ve gone, and they’ll remember the football. If only one person thinks I’m the best player in the world, that’s good enough for me.

Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history… this is what makes you strong. It’s not looking out that’s going to do that – it’s looking in.

I personally have always been in favor of people who are gay being permitted to marry legally – and I still feel that way.

That great Cathedral space which was childhood.

One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

I’ve often felt depressed; everyone feels depressed.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.

When we make progress quickly, it feeds our emotions. Then, when there’s a period of waiting or we hit a plateau, we find out how committed we really are and whether we’re going to see things through to the finish or quit.

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

I’m a romantic; a sentimental person thinks things will last, a romantic person hopes against hope that they won’t.

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.

I think a law clerk told me about this tumblr and also explained to me what Notorious RBG was a parody on. And now my grandchildren love it, and I try to keep abreast of the latest that’s on the tumblr.

Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.

There are so many emotions that you’re feeling, you can get stifled by them if you’re feeling them all at once. What I try to do is take one moment – one simple, simple feeling – and expand it into three-and-a-half minutes.

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. That’s the only way I can find an explanation for why 55,000 people would want to come see me sing.

I left Mainz after 18 years and thought, ‚Next time, I will work with a little less of my heart.‘ I said that because we all cried for a week. The city gave us a goodbye party, and it lasted a week.

I don’t hate women – they just sometimes make me mad.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.

Whoever does not have a good father should procure one.

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.

There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.

We humans are self-absorbed by nature, and spend most of our time focusing inwardly on our emotions, on our wounds, on our fantasies.

I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: ‚What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.‘

My family wasn’t rich, so when it comes to money, I tend to think, ‚Err on the side of caution.‘

I would like to go back to Wales. I’m obsessed with my childhood and at least three times a week dream I am back there.

I always wanted a family.

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

It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

I really miss being able to blend in with people.

All you need is love.

I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can’t imagine going through that. If you know that’s going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I’d rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?

Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived. The pain now is part of the happiness then.

My folks ain’t graduated from high school or nothing like that, so we always had to struggle in the family – and I come from a big family.

But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy.

In my day, there were no vet video games.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

At the age of 6, a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public school of Biran, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the little school in Biran.

Hatred is self-punishment.

The ‚Billionaire‘ song is what my kids tease me with. They sing it to me. It’s funny.