To be depressed or neurotic is passive. It happened to us; we are its victim, and we have no control over it.

What happened in the past that was painful has a great deal to do with what we are today, but revisiting this painful past can contribute little or nothing to what we need to do now.

We are driven by five genetic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun.

The ultimate use of power is to empower others.

Education is the process in which we discover that learning adds quality to our lives. Learning must be experienced.

It is almost impossible for anyone, even the most ineffective among us, to continue to choose misery after becoming aware that it is a choice.

This is at the heart of all good education, where the teacher asks students to think and engages them in encouraging dialogues, constantly checking for understanding and growth.

Good or bad, everything we do is our best choice at that moment.

Too many of us fail to fulfill our needs because we say no rather than yes, yes when we should say no.

We almost always have choices, and the better the choice, the more we will be in control of our lives.

When you study great teachers... you will learn much more from their caring and hard work than from their style.

There is a latent energy in each of us, in all areas of our lives

Even in your smallest gestures, you express your sense of honor, if you have one.

Asians are nice people, but they burn a lot of shirts.

I looked around, counting the competition. Sixteen. To win, all I had to do was incapacitate each one, place my hand over their hearts and turn my palm into a flame. Easy. Yeah right.

The moment you start to talk about playing music, you destroy music. It cannot be talked about. It can only be played, enjoyed and listened to.

There are no ordinary lives.

If our early lessons of acceptance were as successful as our early lessons of anger how much happier we would all be.

Better to die, and sleep The never-waking sleep, than linger on And dare to live when the soul's life is gone.

One day the "Don't Knows" will get in and then where will we be?

One of my books is a hallucinogen, an aphrodisiac, a mood elevator, an intellectual garage door opener, and a metaphysical trash compactor. They'll do everything except rotate your tires.