When we recognise the virtues, the talent, the beauty of Mother Earth, something is born in us, some kind of connection, love is born.

Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it’s all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can’t change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

If I’m not in love, if I’m not with a long-term companion, I cannot be happy.

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered – either by themselves or by others.

You bring children into the world. You love them with heart and soul.

I could fall in love with a sumo wrestler if he told stories and made me laugh. Obviously, it would be easier if someone was African-American and lived next door and went to the same church. Because then I wouldn’t have to translate.

Why, if someone is good in one field can they not be accepted or given the slightest opportunity to express and be creative in other fields?

Do you not realize that the love the Father bestowed on the perfect Christ He now bestows on you?

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

I’ve always appreciated a turn of phrase.

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

The Tao teaches us not to intervene and interfere. The things we love we have to learn to leave alone. And the people we love we have to learn to let them be.

I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.

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.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

I’ve never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves – it’s just a question of finding the subject.

For me, one of the toughest things about Valentine’s Day is that it gets geared up as the day to profess your love. See, T-E-S-T – that’s a bad word that doesn’t go with L-O-V-E.

The ear is the avenue to the heart.

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

I love to sit and eat quietly and enjoy each bite, aware of the presence of my community, aware of all the hard and loving work that has gone into my food.

I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you, and all it contains.

Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

Fill the earth with your songs of gratitude.

It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.

FaceTime helps me a lot. I feel like I’m at home even though I’m not.

When the people we love stop paying attention, trust begins to slip away and hurt starts seeping in.

I owe the best of myself to geology, but everything it has taught me tends to turn me away from dead things.

Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.

Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.

Dear friends, we may well sing to our Beloved when it is near the time of our departure. It draws near, and as it approaches, we must not dread it, but rather thank God for it.

A true man hates no one.

If you were the President of the United States or the Queen of England – you couldn’t have a person who would be more protective than my mother was for me. Which meant really that I could dare to do all sorts of things.

The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.

Even with all of the things that are so awful, if you walk into your yard and stay there looking at almost anything for five minutes, you will be stunned by how marvelous life is and how incredibly lucky we are to have it.

The only way I’d be caught without makeup is if my radio fell in the bathtub while I was taking a bath and electrocuted me and I was in between makeup at home. I hope my husband would slap a little lipstick on me before he took me to the morgue.

All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.

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.

There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.

It’s every girl’s dream to be a cover girl!

I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality.

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.

We never love a person, but only qualities.

We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.

I can dance to just about anything.

My whole life and my whole career, even through my music, I tell people: let’s unify; let’s show more love.

I knew I was blessed with a gift of having both parents.

Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

Of life’s two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer’s hand.