Indifference is the acid of life. It erodes all the spirit that's in us and makes us useless to anyone else. We all have to stand for something, or our souls cease to breathe.

Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.

Beware the religion that turns you against another one. It's unlikely that it's really religion at all.

Hope is not a matter of waiting for things outside of us to get better. It is about getting better inside about what is going on outside.

We talk religion in a world that worships the bread but does not distribute it, that practices ritual rather than righteousness, that confesses but does not repent.

Grief is a sign that we loved something more than ourselves. . . . Grief makes us worthy to suffer with the rest of the world.

Compassion makes no distinction between friends and enemies, neighbors and outsiders, compatriots and foreigners. Compassion is the gate to human community.

When souls really touch, it is forever. Then space and time disappear, and all that remains is the consciousness that we are not alone in life.

Compassion is not sympathy. Compassion is mercy. It is a commitment to take responsibility for the suffering of others.

Oppressors do not get to be oppressors in a single sweep. They manage it because little by little, we make them that. We overlook too much in the beginning and wonder why we lost control in the end.

Compassion is the ability to understand how difficult it is for people to be the best of what they want to be at all times.

Punk rock should mean freedom, liking and excepting anything that you like. Playing whatever you want. As sloppy as you want. As long as it's good and it has passion.

Should humans conquer the mountain or should they wish for the mountain to possess them?

To realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation.

Creativity is imagining something that isn't there and making it real.

You can plan to be brave - it's even better if you just try to be brave.

Some couples divorce because of a misunderstandin g; others, because they understand each other too well.

Sometimes I think high school is one long hazy activity: if you are tough enough to survive this, they'll let you become an adult. I hope it's worth it.

I kind of have to be a master of cleaning, extracting and trusting my data before I do anything with it.

She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, hated at tea parties, feared in shops, and loved at crises.