Longing is a compass that guides us through life. We may never get what we really want, that's true, but every step along the way will be determined by it.

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.

Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots.

I've never thought of describing her beauty as delicate, because delicate just isn't a word that fits June... but here, now that she's sick, I realize just how fragile she can be.

If you can't bear it, dare it.

In the editing room, 20 percent of the time you're using stuff from before the actor knew the camera was rolling or you're taking a line from somewhere else and putting it in his mouth.

Philosophy became a gloomy science, in the labyrinth of which people vainly tried to find the exit, called The Truth.

Reproof, especially as it relates to children, administered in all gentleness, will render the culprit not afraid, but ashamed to repeat the offence.

Did you see more glass?

TV cameras seem to add ten pounds to me. So I make it a policy never to eat TV cameras.

How unlike a dead fish a live fish is.

Converting your own passions into a job is the fastest method for eliminating any passion you once had.