The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren’t in a very good mood.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.

See things from the boy’s point of view.

It is very hard to not be able to engage with people in a real and honest way because they either want something from me, or they see me as something that I simply am not.

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

There is nothing we like to communicate to others as much as the seal of secrecy together with what lies under it.

Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated.

Whoever is spared personal pain must feel himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our share of the misery which lies upon the world.

If you deny people their own voice, you’ll have no idea of who they were.

Occasionally I’ve seen children become heavy-handed and insensitive when dealing with their aging parents, and it only caused resentment and hard feelings.

When you’re in prison, you want to know that you were thought about.

Kids who have an understanding of how and why their feelings are what they are are much more likely to talk to us about what’s happening, and they have better skills to work it out.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

When I was in college I did a lot of stupid things and I don’t want to make an excuse for that. Some of the things that people accuse me of are true, some of them aren’t. There are pranks, IMs.

The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.

Good planning is important. I’ve also regarded a sense of humor as one of the most important things on a big expedition. When you’re in a difficult or dangerous situation, or when you’re depressed about the chances of success, someone who can make you laugh eases the tension.

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.

Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.

I’m actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions that are unpopular.

Indecision may or may not be my problem.

Being politically correct means saying what’s polite rather than what’s accurate. I like to be accurate.

We think when God speaks to us, there’s going to be a boom out of Heaven or we’re going to get some chill bumps, but I really believe God’s talking to us all the time. He’s talking to us right in here. I call it our heart, our conscience, but it’s the Holy Spirit talking to us.

Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.

The PC has improved the world in just about every area you can think of. Amazing developments in communications, collaboration and efficiencies. New kinds of entertainment and social media. Access to information and the ability to give a voice people who would never have been heard.

The thing about hip-hop today is it’s smart, it’s insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable.

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – ‚tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.

Talking, it seemed to me, was the point of adult existence.

Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass appreciation.

Pirate was going to be my middle name, but then my uncle had a problem with it because pirates are bad.

Better understated than overstated. Let people be surprised that it was more than you promised and easier than you said.

I think, a lot of times when you meet someone, you feel like you need to appear like you’re not interested in them so that they’ll be more interested in you. But what happens when you start showing him that you actually like him? What’s he gonna do then? Play the tape forward; how do you keep a guy like that? I don’t want to sign up for that.

Part of what confuses people in times of upheaval is that you’re getting so many different points of view and directions and so and so, how to do this and do that. And a lot of it is written in a language that honestly most people cannot understand.

Sometimes when you take strong stands, if you’re not called to do it, you’re dividing the audience you’re trying to reach.

Do everything as in the eye of another.

A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

I looked the people of Louisiana in the eye and told them exactly what I thought in terms that normal people use.

Communications technology changes possibilities for communication, but that doesn’t mean it changes the inherited structure of the brain. So you may think that you’re addicted to online reading, but as soon as it isn’t available anymore, your brain will pretty immediately adjust to other forms of reading. It’s a habit like all habits.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Listen to many, speak to a few.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

You have to be careful about how much you reveal to people that look up to you so much.

If you’re talking to a man who wouldn’t fight with you under any circumstances whatsoever, then you’re talking to someone for whom you have absolutely no respect.

Don’t tell your problems to people: eighty percent don’t care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them.

Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.

Just as the humble, unassuming, assenting ‚O.K.‘ has deposed the more affirmative ‚Yes,‘ so the little cringe and hesitation and approximation of ‚like‘ are a help to young people who are struggling to negotiate the shoals and rapids of ethnic identity, the street, and general correctness.

At one time, you could sit on the Rue de la Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv or in Medina and you could see a person come in, black, white, it didn’t matter. You said, ‚That’s an American‘ because there’s a readiness to smile and to talk to people.

There is always something infinitely mean about other people’s tragedies.

What can I say? I’m a talker.

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

You cannot share your life with a dog, as I had done in Bournemouth, or a cat, and not know perfectly well that animals have personalities and minds and feelings.

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have.

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.

One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.