The Second Amendment has a preamble about the need for a militia. Because there is a need for a militia to be at the ready, therefore the right to keep and bear arms must be secured.

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

Reading is the key that opens doors to many good things in life. Reading shaped my dreams, and more reading helped me make my dreams come true.

Anger, resentment, envy, and self-pity are wasteful reactions. They greatly drain one's time. They sap energy better devoted to productive endeavors.

We should learn ... to do our best for the sake of our communities and for the sake of those for whom we pave the way.

My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.

Women's rights are an essential part of the overall human rights agenda, trained on the equal dignity and ability to live in freedom all people should enjoy.

If there was one decision I would overrule, it would be Citizens United. I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

Sometimes people say unkind or thoughtless things, and when they do, it is best to be a little hard of hearing — to tune out and not snap back in anger or impatience.

The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control.

Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.

Some people grow older and more cynical. Some people become just the opposite. Life hurts without hope, and cynicism, once a luxury, becomes unaffordable.

None of us deserve the good things that come our way. It's by grace, love and forgiveness that any of us experience joy.

Love is bigger than everything.

Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.

When people ask me how is it I was a musician, I facetiously say that I'm a firm believer in reincarnation and in a previous life I was Johann Sebastian Bach's guide dog.

Compassion to an offender who has grossly violated the laws is, in effect, a cruelty to the peaceable subject who has observed them.

You are not going to know the meaning of God or prayer unless you reduce yourself to a cipher.

All pleasure should be a little bent, don't you think?

I often feel, and ever more deeply I realize, that fate and character are the same conception.