Our journey is not complete until all our children... know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.

You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Keep exploring. Keep dreaming. Keep asking why. Don’t settle for what you already know. Never stop believing in the power of your ideas, your imagination, your hard work to change the world.

When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk.

Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.

Change is never easy, but always possible.

Don’t ever let anybody tell you that your efforts don’t matter or that your voice doesn’t count. Don’t ever believe that you can’t make a difference. You have.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up.

Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes, to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.

If somebody is different from you, that's not something you criticize, that's something that you appreciate.

Governing is not a hero's profession. It is a profession of compromises.

Do you really enjoy living a life that's so hateful? 'Cause there's a hole where your soul should be, you're losing control of it, and it's really distasteful.

The only things in my life that compatibly exists with this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit.

There are some exceptions: Chicago, my hometown, in particular. But overall in the country this is a much safer place than it used to be.

It cannot be denied that outward accidents conduce much to fortune, favor, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting virtue; but chiefly, the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands

I love to write out of doors and sleep out of doors, too. If I sleep under the open sky it becomes part of the writing experience, part of my insulation from the world.

Ironing is a great diversion from the reality you dont want to face.

I like to write my lyrics on clay tablets.

An enemy forgiven is more dangerous than a thousand foes.

A man said to the universe: 'Sir, I exist!' 'However,' replied the universe. 'The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.