Never give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that's not too awful either, but never, never give up.

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.

As life becomes harder and more threatening, it also becomes richer, because the fewer expectations we have, the more good things of life become unexpected gifts that we accept with gratitude.

Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.

We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.

Such words as 'God' and 'Death' and 'Suffering' and 'Eternity' are best forgotten. We have to become as simple and as wordless as the growing corn or the falling rain. We must just be.

Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.

That I should die next week, I would still be able to sit at my desk all week and study with perfect equanimity, for I know now that life and death make a meaningful whole.

I don’t want to be anything special. I only want to try to be true to that in me which seeks to fulfill its promise.

There are moments when I feel like giving up or giving in, but I soon rally again and do my duty as I see it: to keep the spark of life inside me ablaze.

How rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.

It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.

I'm not sure we have the right strategy in Afghanistan. Let me think this over for a few months.

Keep in mind that your individual vote doesn't mean anything.

I think it would be worse to get mauled by a dancing bear than just a regular bear because you can't totally blame the dancing bear.

If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.

Once you go alien, you really do never go back.

Don't share your secrets if you preface them with 'just don't tell anybody.

I've always said, 'I am a selector, I am not defector' - the first few phrases in English I learned. I said I hate 'defector'; something defective about the people. It's a bad word.

He's an angel. Isn't he supposed to love everyone, even the damned? Especially when said damned are his drinking buddies.

I am naturally taciturn, and became a silent and attentive listener.