We should not be frightened by appearances.

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.

The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.

There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.

Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.

Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.

Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.

The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.

It's scary to make friends, it's scarier to stand up for a friend, but it's scariest to not be a friend for fear will be your only company.

The Cuban economy is a disaster. No, I do not praise Fidel Castro.

That's what love does - it pursues blindly, unflinchingly, and without end. When you go after something you love, you'll do anything it takes to get it, even if it costs everything.

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.

I mean, the Obama position has been, "We think government ought to be spending this money, not the people who earn it."

Even if you're fat, one thing always fits: shoes.

On intervention under the UN framework, I think that sometimes that's legitimate, in fact even helpful.

Faith is not by wishful thinking, it is what takes root in the heart and shows in one's actions.

All the joys of earth will not assuage our thirst for happiness; while a single grief suffices to shroud life in a sombre veil, and smite it with nothingness at all points.