If you want to be an agent of change, it starts with you and what you're made of.

The more I expect, the more unhappy I am going to be. The more I accept, the more serene I am.

Zoos are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures - of how animals once were in their natural habitat. If the right policies toward nature were pursued, we would need no zoos at all.

Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it.

I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God's business.

Our challenges don’t define us, our actions do.

If you fixate on the worst-case scenario and it actually happens, you’ve lived it twice.

Family is not an important thing. It's everything.

I like to encourage people to realize that any action is a good action if it's proactive and there is positive intent behind it.

One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered.

Medical science has proven time and again that when the resources are provided, great progress in the treatment, cure, and prevention of disease can occur.

Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The wishes of an honest man do not stretch beyond what he undoubtedly deserves.

I don't like the country. The crickets make me nervous.

Education is understanding relationships.

There were days when he touched the tip of her nose and it was enough, a miracle of plenty.

You're extending hospitality, and hospitality is a big part of how politics works.

It's the writer's job to stage confrontations, so the characters will say surprising and revealing things, and educate and entertain us all.

You must see your goals clearly and specifically before you can set out for them. Hold them in your mind until they become second nature.

Thus drivers inching southward will see the phalanx of birds heading west as one spontaneous gesture.

You haven't experienced anything until you've been to Africa. You know the world is bigger than you are after you see Africa.