Tragically, one of the rarest commodities in our culture is empathy. People are hungry for empathy, They don't know how to ask for it.

Every criticism, judgment, diagnosis, and expression of anger is the tragic expression of an unmet need.

Your presence is the most precious gift you can give to another human being.

All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.

We are never angry because of what others say or do. It is our thinking that makes us angry.

Instead of playing the game "Making Life Wonderful", we often play the game called "Who's Right". Do you know that game? It's a game where everybody loses.

Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing.

People have been trained to criticize, insult, and otherwise communicate in ways that create distance among people.

You don't have to be brilliant. It's enough to become progressively less stupid.

Most of us grew up speaking a language that encourages us to label, compare, demand, and pronounce judgments rather than to be aware of what we are feeling and needing.

The most dangerous of all behaviors may consist of doing things 'because we're supposed to.

Magic is a dangerous thing, child. It isn’t something to use lightly.

[It's] long been known that making fun of oneself is only a way of taking oneself seriously slightly less crude than others. 97

Can you think of anything that can get better if we crowd more people into our cities, our towns, into our state our nation or on this earth?

The thorn keeps us from over-inflating

Life entails risk, and you have to draw some lines.

The natural geopolitical arrangement is for Europe to be part of Eurasia, especially for Germany to develop trade and investment relationships with Russia.

It was an enormous mistake for us to try to occupy that country after June of 2003. We have to pull back, and we have to recognize it.

I've had the pleasure to work with a lot of very great actors. And they're too different to say who's the best.

Ambition like a liquid ruby stains.

I've had a few semi-toxic relationships, but it's not what I look for when I'm seeing someone.