The most important thing is that we need to be understood. We need someone to be able to listen to us and to understand us. Then we will suffer less.

Because you are alive, everything is possible.

The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.

Silence is essential. We need silence just as much as we need air, just as much as plants need light. If our minds are crowded with words and thoughts, there is no space for us.

Around us, life bursts with miracles, a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops.

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.

It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.

The quality of our life depends on the quality of the seeds that lie deep in our consciousness.

Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.

Do not refuse to help your own relatives.

Imperfect parenting does not cause addiction. If that were so, everyone would be one.

The turning point for effective communication is actually hearing what is being said, rather than hearing what you want to hear instead.

Let me use their own terminology against them. They aborted a child in the 200th trimester.

Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven.

The dog has no ambition, no self-interest, no desire for vengeance, no fear other than that of displeasing.

A useful word previously unknown to me: 'ergophobia', meaning 'fear or hatred of work'. At last I can define myself in one word.

Any work that is really great hovers between terrific and terrible.

In the Netherlands I read the first chapter of Exquisite Corpse to an audience that laughed in all the places I thought were funny - an experience I've never had in America!

There ought to be no laws to guarantee property against the folly of its possessors.