When we want to talk, we can instead listen, and let our attentiveness to another's need to speak be our silent statement.

A polite enemy is just as difficult to discredit, as a rude friend is to protect.

People use words to do battle and to hurt one another terribly, tragically and even mortally.

Respectful communication under conflict or opposition is an essential and truly awe-inspiring ability.

We must quit thinking we know everything, and quit placing "knowledge" over kindness and compassion.

The dreamer's untamed eye sees beyond the illusions to the heart of what is real.

There is no greater intelligence than kindness and empathy.

Love only serves and does not calculate.

If you do not like a certain behavior in others, look within yourself to find the roots of what discomforts you.

Materialism is an identity crisis.

Life moves forward. The old leaves wither, die and fall away, and the new growth extends forward into the light.

I just want to say to the kids out there watching: You can do anything you want in life. Unless Jay Leno wants to do it too.

People don't mind positive stereotypes. People don't mind positive assumptions. It's only negative assumptions about them. So their outrage is so arbitrary.

Expect nothing. Today: that is your life.

This was my first novel [The Dissemblers ]. I've never seriously written short stories, and actually find short stories much more intimidating as an art form than novels.

Life is full of strange absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.

My view is that it is desirable to be both loved and feared; but it is difficult to achieve both and, if one of them has to be lacking, it is much safer to be feared than loved.

I would kill for a cheeseburger. Honestly. If I stumbled across someone eating a cheeseburger, I would kill them for it.

A question like “do you love me?” was an itch our doctors told us not to scratch.

Once you place that crown of liar on your head, you can take it off again, but it leaves a stain for all time.

I hate it when, after I let a white person know they've said something racist, I end up having to listen for hours to their life.