To open deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit.

The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

The things that matter most in our lives are not fantastic or grand. They are the moments when we touch one another.

Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war.

We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart.

Do not doubt your own basic goodness. In spite of all confusion and fear, you are born with a heart that knows what is just, loving, and beautiful.

In the end, just three things matter: How well we have lived How well we have loved How well we have learned to let go

Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.

Let go of the battle. Breathe quietly and let it be. Let your body relax and your heart soften. Open to whatever you experience without fighting.

The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.

Prayer is not mere wishing. It is asking – with a will. . . . It is energy. We turn to an active Giver

I try asking him some more questions, but it's like talking to voice mail.

Women who miscalculate are called mothers.

I've been doing this sort of thing my entire life. It's my love, it's my passion, it's what I do day in and day out. I eat, sleep, and breathe music and singing.

I used to kind of blame someone for not being able to get through that - I'm talking about the addiction part - but I've had a few experiences recently where you don't blame the person anymore.

It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.

The walls are white, the track is grey, the grass is green, and the sky is blue...your job is to keep them all where they belong.

I want to focus on God's grace and give thanks for all the good things in my life. I don't want to focus on what I don't have.

I think the first year and a half that I was in New York I was having trouble just living somewhere. Back in them days the city was a lot different than it is now.

My idols have always stuck to their guns and said what they want to do.