What advertisers call brand loyalty is merely the consumer's defense against the need to waste energy differentiating among things that barely differ.

Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers.

I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference.

Most people do not consider dawn to be an attractive experience - unless they are still up.

Maybe this year, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but looking for potential.

The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.

I regard this novel as a work without redeeming social value, unless it can be recycled as a cardboard box.

What he labels sexual, she labels harassment.

Today, much of journalism and politics are in a kind of collusion to oversimplify and personalize issues. No room for ambivalence. Plenty of room for the personal attack.

Ultimately, time is all you have and the idea isn't to save it, but to savour it.

Our 'mistakes' become our crucial parts, sometimes our best parts, of the lives we have made.

Beware of critics of education who cloak their desire to protect privilege (and inequality) in the garb of educational reform.

Because sometimes it’s being in a crowd that makes you feel lonelier than when you’re alone.

A thought experiment courtesy of the Stoics. If you are tired of everything you possess, imagine that you have lost all these things.

The battle rages everyday. In the Arena of God

I respect the rights of those who do not share my beliefs, but to teach my faith to my children and to share it with anyone who will listen - that is my right, too.

Heartache is very fertile ground for song-making but so is happiness, so is absolute bliss.

I'm playing to the sort of people who like the same records.

It's what still excites me most about acting: letting your imagination go places it's never been before. There's nothing better than that

Let me arise and open the gate, to breathe the wild warm air of the heath, And to let in Love, and to let out Hate, And anger at living and scorn of Fate, To let in Life, and to let out Death.

His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes: With every thing that pretty is, My lady sweet, arise.