Dedication to goodness-dedication in response to an inner moral mandate rather than external restraint-was both the antidote to the pain and the source of great happiness.

Mindfulness meditation doesn't change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart's capacity to accept life as it is.

Surrender means wisely accommodating ourselves to what is beyond our control.

The mind is like tofu. It tastes like whatever you marinate it in.

Spirituality doesn't look like sitting down and meditating. Spirituality looks like folding the towels in a sweet way and talking kindly to the people in the family eve though you've had a rough day.

Life is painful, suffering is optional.

May I meet each moment fully and meet it as a friend.

Ultimately ... it's not the stories that determine our choices, but the stories that we continue to choose.

If we can keep at least a bit of the mind clear about temporality, we can mange complicated, even difficult, times with grace.

Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience. It isn't more complicated than that.

People are realizing that what seemed important to them in their lives-materialism and consumerism-doesn't work at all to make a happy heart. It actually makes an unhappy heart. And an unhappy world.

For I need this scar over my heart to remind me. Crazy as it sounds, if I can bear the wound on my body, it lessens what I must carry on my soul. How he knew that about me, I cannot fathom.

A woman may try to control the man. But God appointed man as the head of the family.

I can feel the hurt. There's something good about it. Mostly it makes me stop remembering.

The bottom line is that our government is not intelligent about how it pursues the public interest, because its decisions are not informed decisions (and its interest is generally not the public's).

In goodness there are all kinds of wisdom.

When you warn people about the dangers of climate change, they call you a saint. When you explain what needs to be done to stop it, they call you a communist.

There was a period when I stopped talking so much, because I was just going through certain things. I just did the gigs and just stayed in, tried to stay away.

Misunderstanding must be nakedly exposed before true understanding can begin to flourish.

I can't give more than I have. It doesn't matter if I am the most beautiful person in the room. There is inevitably going to be somebody way shinier and more tan than my pasty self.

The conservative Republican governors tend to be more oriented toward trying to work with Democrats and getting things done.