Politics really is a team sport. You really have to work the whole system to get somewhere down the road.

Almost every successful person begins with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so.

Much of life is about failure, whether we acknowledge it or not, and your destiny is profoundly shaped by how effectively you learn from and adapt to failure.

One of the things this world is finding is that emotion is the basis of reason. We really have to trust our emotions, which are much smarter than our reason in some ways.

The brain is not the mind. It is probably impossible to look at a map of brain activity and predict or even understand the emotions, reactions, hopes and desires of the mind.

Civility is the natural state for people who know how limited their own individual powers are and know, too, that they need the conversation.

It’s only useful to ask, what wisdom have you learned from your misjudgments that will help you going forward?

It is especially painful when narcissists suffer memory loss because they are losing parts of the person they love most.

Friendship allows you to see your own life but with a second sympathetic self.

Our emotions tell us what to value. They're like a little GPS system: Go that way. Don't go that way.

The daily activity that contributes most to happiness is having dinner with friends. The daily activity that detracts most from happiness is commuting. Eat more. Commute less.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a great teacher and just a great person in general.

I'm tired and I don't know what day it is.

Seeker, empty the boat, lighten the load, be free of craving and judgment and hatred, and feel the joy of the way.

love is always in danger of being sentimentalized.

I think handbags, not so much clothes anymore, but I think you can tell a fashion victim by their handbag.

He knew she was there by the joy and terror that took possession of his heart [...] Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around.

When people mean to be good to you, you don't mind very much when they're not quite—always.

Around 5th and 6th grade I thought Dean Martin was the coolest guy in the world; he was a great singer, had his own television show and acted in movies.

If you must doubt something, doubt your limits.

The system is wrong where it rewards the lack of interest in work with money, so you don't have to work.