Suffering is the demand that experience be different from what it is.

Mindfulness meditation doesn't change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart's capacity to accept life as it is.

Surrender means wisely accommodating ourselves to what is beyond our control.

The mind is like tofu. It tastes like whatever you marinate it in.

Spirituality doesn't look like sitting down and meditating. Spirituality looks like folding the towels in a sweet way and talking kindly to the people in the family eve though you've had a rough day.

Life is painful, suffering is optional.

May I meet each moment fully and meet it as a friend.

Ultimately ... it's not the stories that determine our choices, but the stories that we continue to choose.

If we can keep at least a bit of the mind clear about temporality, we can mange complicated, even difficult, times with grace.

Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of present experience. It isn't more complicated than that.

People are realizing that what seemed important to them in their lives-materialism and consumerism-doesn't work at all to make a happy heart. It actually makes an unhappy heart. And an unhappy world.

Yes, I know, it's not the truth, but in a great history little truths can be altered so that the greater truth emerges.

Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

As the third anniversary of the September 11th attacks draws near we must ensure our nation is prepared to handle the continued threat of violence and terrorism on our country.

Ignorance is a menace to peace.

You need a Democratic Party which is a grassroots party, which makes decisions from the bottom on up, not just from the top on down.

I don't like to generalize, but if you see a guy with his shirt tucked into his shorts, he's probably killed three or four children.

I was born in Belgium and moved to Amsterdam when I was 17. I am not a Calvinist Dutchman but a Catholic Belgian. I think that makes a big difference.

You have to be a pretty miserable person to not enjoy making movies. It's something I always dreamed about. I do not take it for granted.

If you are going on with God, the only thing that is clear to you, and the only thing God intends to be clear, is the way He deals with your own soul.

If you never quit, youll never fail.