Indifference is a misguided way of defending ourselves.

The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

The things that matter most in our lives are not fantastic or grand. They are the moments when we touch one another.

Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war.

We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart.

Do not doubt your own basic goodness. In spite of all confusion and fear, you are born with a heart that knows what is just, loving, and beautiful.

In the end, just three things matter: How well we have lived How well we have loved How well we have learned to let go

Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.

Let go of the battle. Breathe quietly and let it be. Let your body relax and your heart soften. Open to whatever you experience without fighting.

The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.

You don't have friends in here, you'll soon come to understand that. You get attached to someone, then you'll just lose them. They'll get shanked or they'll jump or they'll be taken one night.

Madness plants mirrors in the desert. I find the means frightening.

You've been dreaming lies again, Susana.

A real man loves his wife, and places his family as the most important thing in life. Nothing has brought me more peace and content in life than simply being a good husband and father.

There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.

It's not always so simple, Haven. Sometimes there isn't a good guy and a bad guy. Sometimes even the ones you want to believe turn out to be liars.

Look, the world is everywhere: satellites, end tables, the pink and white poinsettias outside the church; reunions and degrees. All those radiant asterisks . . . Soon it will all make sense.

A mediocre music teacher tells. A good music teacher explains. A superior music teacher demonstrates. A great music teacher inspires.

Can a nation remain healthy, can all nations draw together in a world whose brightest stars are film stars?