One of the greatest acts of service you can do is to find someone who is secretly lonely and be a friend to them, if only for a day.

The goal was never dependent on the route that took me there. It was always dependent on the heart that got me through whatever route opened itself up to my efforts.

Sometimes to be a good parent... You have to laugh when you want to be angry. You have to be angry when you want to laugh. And that is why good parenting is tough.

If bullies actually believe that somebody loves them and believes in them, they will love themselves, they will become better people, and many will even become saviors to the bullied.

A lot of people don't like me. I take that as evidence that I have done something beautifully different or something extraordinary.

People who love themselves, don’t hurt other people. The more we hate ourselves, the more we want others to suffer.

Children are gifts. They are not ours for the breaking. They are ours for the making.

Saturday mornings, I’ve learned, are a great opportunity for kids to sneak into your bed, fall back asleep, and kick you in the face.

It’s time we stand up and demand more of the fathers of this world. It’s time we stop buying into their rationalizations and their sorry explanations. It’s time we give our kids a fighting chance.

Parenting is the greatest pay it forward system on earth. We don't owe our parents anything. We owe our children everything. The same was true for our parents. The same will be true for our children.

Fishing is much less about the fishing, and much more about the time alone with your kid, away from the hustle and bustle of the everyday.

Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad.

I lost my father this past year, and the word feels right because I keep looking for him. As if he were misplaced. As if he could just turn up, like a sock or a set of keys.

No person, relationship, or religion should complete you. They can enhance whatever is already there, but completion of the self comes from within, not from anything beyond that.

A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

It doesn't have to be somber to be sacred.

I certainly know that I would not be able to survive if it were not for the fact that I am being upheld by the prayers of so many people.

A leader must face danger. He must take the risk and the blame, and the brunt of the storm.

Let a man practise the profession he best knows. [Lat., Quam quisque novit artem, in hac se exerceat.]

A foreign war is a lot milder than a civil war.

Reality is an acquired taste.