The 'Rescue Me' gig was a unique opportunity to play a character - a misanthropic, angry guy - who was so contrary to how people think of me.

The more I expect, the more unhappy I am going to be. The more I accept, the more serene I am.

Zoos are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures - of how animals once were in their natural habitat. If the right policies toward nature were pursued, we would need no zoos at all.

Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it.

I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God's business.

Our challenges don’t define us, our actions do.

If you fixate on the worst-case scenario and it actually happens, you’ve lived it twice.

Family is not an important thing. It's everything.

I like to encourage people to realize that any action is a good action if it's proactive and there is positive intent behind it.

One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered.

Medical science has proven time and again that when the resources are provided, great progress in the treatment, cure, and prevention of disease can occur.

I tried always to do better: saw always a little further. I tried to stretch myself.

Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now.

I'm used to getting up at 7, getting breakfast, getting the kids off to school, and doing the mommy thing and the wife thing and the daughter thing.

All we can do about bullies is wish them happiness & celebrate our own.

I don't want my album coming out with a 'G' rating. Nobody would buy it.

Success is not something you pursue. What you pursue will elude you; it can be like trying to chase butterflies. Success is something you attract by the person you become.

You evil thing, why do you haunt me?

No democracy is born perfect, and none ever gets to be perfect. Yet democracy is superior to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes because, unlike them, democracy is perfectible.

There never was a God. 'God is dead' is a halfway measure I won't go with.

I was not wounded in any part of my body, but I had never experienced such intense pain, such a ripping of the nerves, such an ache of the heart.