...there is something wrong with any spirituality that does not inspire selfless concern for others

It's a great event to get outside and enjoy nature. I find it very exciting no matter how many times I see bald eagles.

Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.

Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate.

Each of the world religions has its own particular genius, its own special insight into the nature and requirements of compassion, and has something unique to teach us.

I like silence; I'm a gregarious loner and without the solitude, I lose my gregariousness.

Compassion is not an option. It's the key to our survival.

Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.

Religion isn’t about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.

I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.

Surely it's better to love others, however messy and imperfect the involvement, than to allow one's capacity for love to harden.

My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself.

A memoir provides a record not so much of the memoirist as of the memoirist's world.

It is destiny which takes you to people who have the answers to your questions.

Librarians are on the front lines of an invisible struggle over our information diet and, for better or worse, the scales are not tipping in their direction.

There are a couple of times I would've liked to have married. I think I made a mistake, especially once.

So, it's a matter of that I want to take our music around the globe.

Talent is only interesting if it's challenged.

The Way is eternal. Until your last day, you are free from peril.

Where I am always thou art. Thy image lives within my heart.

I will happily support anything that protects life.