If we could view Muhammad as we do any other important historical figure we would surely consider him to be one of the greatest geniuses the world has known.

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.

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.

You make name for yourself when you overcome pain, weakness, laziness and ignorance

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Existence was not only absurd, it was plain hard work. Think of how many times you put on your underwear in a lifetime. It was appalling, it was disgusting, it was stupid.

Integrity and blame can never be friends.

Crisis for others is a source of despair. For me, it's an opportunity to bring reform. I owe this country a debt I cannot repay.

I didn't cost the Series. I cost a game in the regular season.

Nobody is strong 100 percent of the time, or falling apart 100 percent of the time; sometimes you're doing both at once.

With any other celebrity, people come up and say, 'Hey, I really like your work.' But with my fans, when they see me, they don't even say hello. They just go, 'AWWWWWGHGHHHGHGHRRR!'

I'm an artist; I'm not going to use trigonometry.