There is nothing in Islam that is more violent than Christianity.

It's a great event to get outside and enjoy nature. I find it very exciting no matter how many times I see bald eagles.

Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.

Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate.

Each of the world religions has its own particular genius, its own special insight into the nature and requirements of compassion, and has something unique to teach us.

I like silence; I'm a gregarious loner and without the solitude, I lose my gregariousness.

Compassion is not an option. It's the key to our survival.

Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.

Religion isn’t about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.

I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.

Surely it's better to love others, however messy and imperfect the involvement, than to allow one's capacity for love to harden.

That guys. Sideburns. You like him?"My back squirms. "You've asked me that before.""What I meant was, " he says, flustered. "Your feelings haven't changed? Since you've been

Papi, I don't know what to do anymore." Lourdes begins to cry. "No matter what I do, Pilar hates me.""Pilar doesn't hate you, hija. She just hasn't learned to love you yet.

I expend far too much of my maternal energies on guilt and regret.

Music, it's an emotion; if you're just a puppet, how can you put your soul in what you do? For my part, I believe that I put my soul to it, so I get angry when people think that what I do is plastic.

Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind.

When I'm acting in a film that I'm not producing, I stay to myself.

A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech.

One thing I really want to explore is writing.

Why sip from a tea cup, when you can drink from the river.