I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.

It's a great event to get outside and enjoy nature. I find it very exciting no matter how many times I see bald eagles.

Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.

Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate.

Each of the world religions has its own particular genius, its own special insight into the nature and requirements of compassion, and has something unique to teach us.

I like silence; I'm a gregarious loner and without the solitude, I lose my gregariousness.

Compassion is not an option. It's the key to our survival.

Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.

Religion isn’t about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.

Surely it's better to love others, however messy and imperfect the involvement, than to allow one's capacity for love to harden.

The hajj is one of the five essential practices of Islam; when they make the pilgrimage to Mecca, Muslims ritually act out the central principles of their faith.

Singing songs like 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck.

Leadership is about calling people to do things beyond themselves.

The source of my power and strength is God, and I know it, without a shadow of a doubt.

Each moment presents what happens.

Heavenly Father's commandments are the road map He has given us to return to Him, which is the only way we will be eternally happy.

I think I was born stubborn, that's all.

Look and you wlll see, that which was can never be. When they seek a boy your age, Run, you flippin moron, run!

I moved out to L.A. when I was 17, dropped out of high school, and pursued a career in music.

What, in the devil's name, is the use of respectability, with never so many gigs and silver spoons, if thou inwardly art the pitifulness of all men?

I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.