The sorrow of not being movie stars overwhelms millions.

Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

Birth and death: there was the same consciousness of heightened existence and of her own elevated importance

True peaceful state is that when one has inner peace amidst total lack of peace on the outside. Bliss of the Self (samadhi) amidst external turmoil is ‘tested’ samadhi.

All people are a single nation.

In our culture I think most people think of grief as sadness, and that's certainly part of it, a large part of it, but there's also this thorniness, these edges that come out.

All taxation is an evil, but heavy taxes, indiscriminately levied on every everything are one of the greatest curses that can afflict a people

Prayer doesn't change things - God changes things in answer to prayer.

Keeping a sense of humor about life. My parents divorced when I was 8, and whenever I felt down, my mom would remind me that a sense of humor gets you through just about anything.

I think Rodney Stark makes a substantial contribution to the study of early Christianity in posing the kinds of questions that he pursues (which reflect his social-science background).

After surviving the tsunami in Sri Lanka and facing that moment where I was not sure if I would live to see the next, I learned all that matters is now.

I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature.