There are a lot of groups that feel a little bit strange around me, because I am inclusive.

By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

I will meet my countrymen. I understand only one language: that they are my countrymen, they are my brothers. You may see with whatever colour you want; Modi will not go into that colour.

Things do not always happen the way I would like them to happen, and I had better get used to that.

I do have a lot of gays in my family now, but some will never come out.

I think you could ask 10 English people the same question about class and get a very different answer.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries.

I believe that one key to success is to accept truth, no matter how it’s spoken.

If it’s stress of things that we cannot control, what you have to do is you mitigate that stress as much as possible. You’ve planned, you’ve trained, you’ve done everything you can in your power to mitigate the stress that’s facing you. And then after that, there’s nothing you can do. So, you have to let that one go.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.

A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

I think what’s important is for us to decipher what is honest and what is dishonest and be accepting of those things and not operating from fear.

Because I was suspicious of the traditional Christian church, I tended to tar them all with the same brush. That was a mistake, because there are righteous people working in a whole rainbow of belief systems – from Hasidic Jews to right-wing Bible Belters to charismatic Catholics.

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

A man has a tendency to accept you the way you are, while most women immediately start to pick flaws and want to change you.

If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women, it is because of these who I met were that. There are many ‚bads‘ – bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even ‚bad‘ white males. Only, when you write about ‚bad‘ white males, they don’t complain about it. And need I say that there are ‚good‘ blacks, ‚good‘ homosexuals and ‚good‘ women?

If you want to appeal to everyone, you can’t do a world tour and expect black people to show up at every date – when you’re in Australia, when you’re in Dubai, when you’re in Indonesia.

A black person grows up in this country – and in many places – knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

Here’s the thing. We do a movie with a predominantly black cast, and it’s put in a category of being a black film. When other movies are done with a predominantly white cast, we don’t call them a white film. I’m trying to remove the stigma off things they call black films.

There’s something about death that is comforting. The thought that you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now.

Good psychology should include all the methodological techniques, without having loyalty to one method, one idea, or one person.

I know people said I wasn’t selling out in America, but that was entirely untrue. We sold out all over the world, and every night I looked out into the fans and those front rows that you’re talking about, the tears, the honesty, the inability to not be completely overjoyed because they felt accepted.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Being beautiful is not so fun when you’re in a business with all men.

We all gonna die eventually from something or other, but don’t be a wimp. Put up a good fight.

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

You make yourself broad. You make yourself appealing. ‚Hey, y’all, I’m cool with everybody.‘ That’s my message.

You know, one race will not be a survivor if the other one dies, and that’s something that we should think about.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street.

El Salvador is a democracy so it’s not surprising that there are many voices to be heard here. Yet in my conversations with Salvadorans… I have heard a single voice.

Me only have one ambition, y’know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together – black, white, Chinese, everyone – that’s all.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that’s how we’ve got to live.

I have long understood that losing always comes with the territory when you wander into the gambling business, just as getting crippled for life is an acceptable risk in the linebacker business. They both are extremely violent sports, and pain is part of the bargain. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don’t function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick.

We are a nation of communities… a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

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.

Acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it brings something entirely new into this world. That peace, a subtle energy vibration, is consciousness.

The fact that you are willing to say, ‚I do not understand, and it is fine,‘ is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.

Hong Kong is a wonderful, mixed-up town where you’ve got great food and adventure. First and foremost, it’s a great place to experience China in a relatively accessible way.

Politics has always been ugly to me, and yet I accept that as a fact of life.

I am a beneficiary of the American people’s generosity, and I hope we can have comprehensive immigration legislation that allows this country to continue to be enriched by those who were not born here.

All of us are so mixed. My great-grandfather was white.

A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‚Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?‘ We must always consider the person.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

We’re all just a bunch of sinners, but we do the best we can.

I’m not focused on the gay and lesbian movement.

The American dream belongs to all of us.

As much as I love the Western genre, I figured if I kept doing those, I’d eventually run out of steam on that, and that would’ve been the end of it.