Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others.

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.

The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.

There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.

Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.

Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.

Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.

The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.

You don't take a class you're thrown into motherhood and learn from experience.

Everyone should have the same opportunity, and in many areas that's not the case because programs are built around the elite.

But when you look - and Chicago's not the only - you go to Ferguson, you go to so many different places. You need better relationships. I agree with Secretary [Hillary] Clinton on this.

If you want immortality, then deny form. Whatever has form has mortality. Beyond form is the formless, the immortal.

I'm in favor of sexual encounters.

I believe in blood, sweat and tears.

For me, I think being a conservative means you are focused on all four key principles: strong defense, lower taxes, less spending, and defending traditional American values.

If the movie's well made and it's about things that count, people will ultimately see the depth in it.

Choice springs from the totality of the person. Thus, to study, to analyze what a person is, does not eliminate the idea of freedom.

Most of my life I've had long periods of feeling down and lost. That's why every five years or so I've smashed my life to pieces and started again.