When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were.

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

God cannot be realized through the intellect. Intellect can lead one to a certain extent and no further. It is a matter of faith and experience derived from that faith.

Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.

When you come to see a picture of mine, I want you to know that I’m not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. I want you to know that you won’t be disappointed in me.

I am completely fascinated by the differences and comparisons between real life and fairy tales because we’re raised as little girls to think that we’re a princess and that Prince Charming is going to sweep us off our feet.

The Occupy movement is – it was a big surprise.

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

It definitely has learning a lesson about the way you’re living your life. I wouldn’t compare our movie to that, but it has a structure where it’s about a man who doesn’t appreciate all that he has and finds out at the end that life has been great and he has to enjoy that.

People who think you could wave a magic wand and the legacy of the past will be over are blind.

And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension.

I used to worry about every little thing, trying to figure out every problem. Well, I realize now how foolish that was. I was no more in control of my life than the man on the moon.

Housework never really bothered me… what bothered me about it later was that it was expected to be your life… when you’re a housewife, you are constantly interrupted. You have no space in your life. It isn’t the fact that you do the laundry.

When one has finished building one’s house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know in the worst way – before one began.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.

Many people feel so pressured by the expectations of others that it causes them to be frustrated, miserable and confused about what they should do. But there is a way to live a simple, joy-filled, peaceful life, and the key is learning how to be led by the Holy Spirit, not the traditions or expectations of man.

I have my own vocabulary. I love linguistics. That surprises people.

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get – only with what you are expecting to give – which is everything.

Sometimes when you’ve had a long series of disappointing things happen, you can get into the very bad habit of just expecting more of what you’ve already had.

How to drive a guy crazy: send him a telegram and on the top put ‚page 2.‘

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.

Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You’d wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?

Put a love note in his shaving kit before he leaves on a business trip.

I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.

People are always coming up to me and saying, ‚I heard your dad’s speech, and it’s really great.‘ And they’ll mention some place I didn’t even know my dad was going to.

I was born realizing the flaws in the criminal justice system.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

The ways of the Lord are different from the ways of man. Man’s ways remove people from office or business when they grow old or become disabled. But man’s ways are not and never will be the Lord’s ways.

I realized, ‚Yo, I can’t do anything in moderation. I don’t know how.‘

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

That’s another hallmark of truth, is that it snaps things together. People write to me all the time and say it’s as if things were coming together in my mind. It’s like the Platonic idea that all learning was remembering. You have a nature, and when you feel that nature articulated, it’s it’s like the act of snapping the puzzle pieces together.

What we need to understand is that when traditions become laws, rules, obligations and expectations others put on us that we don’t want to fulfill, then they lose real meaning and steal the joy from our lives. And if we’re too religious, we won’t be able to be led by the Holy Spirit and enjoy an intimate relationship with Him.

Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down.

Yesterday’s just a memory, tomorrow is never what it’s supposed to be.

Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?

‚Bellyache‘ is totally fictional. I like writing about things that aren’t real. The song is about not trusting anyone and then putting trust in yourself and realizing that you don’t know what you are doing, either. Or realizing that things you do with a group of people that you think are cool in the moment are ultimately all on you.

Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same of us.

My earliest realization of the stir of national life was the torch parade in the Garfield campaign. On that occasion, I was not only allowed out that night, but I saw the lamps being filled and lighted.

I try to do something the audience might not have seen before. Like if I’m gonna kiss a girl I wanna kiss her like a girl has never been kissed. Like maybe I would kick her legs out from under her and catch her right before she hits the ground and then kiss her.

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

I believe that Jesus realized his oneness with God and he showed, what he attempted to do was show the way to all of us, how to realize our own onenes with God also, so he’s a precursor.

I don’t like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I’d like to see somebody who’s going in the office. In fact, I’d like to not see them because that way you’d be sure that they’d be working.

There’s a lot of pressure putting an album out all over the world and hoping people everywhere like it.

I never go into a situation with any type of expectations.

I have a nice office. I have a nice house… So I’m not denying myself some great things. I just don’t happen to have expensive hobbies.

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.

When you start to realise how much of what you’ve constructed of yourself is based on deception and lies, that is a horrifying realisation.

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

A friend will tell you she saw your old boyfriend – and he’s a priest.

I realized the power of hip-hop. I realized how influential this music and this culture are.

There are people in the world who have skills and strength and talent that I will never have. Never. These notions that you can ‚be whatever you want to be as long as you want it bad enough‘ are not true. They are fairy tales.

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

When I came to Delhi and noticed an insider view, I felt what it was, and I was surprised to see it. It seemed as if dozens of separate governments are running at the same time in one main government. It appeared that everyone has its own fiefdom.

I try to not focus on what people expect from me.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.