The moment an individual can accept and forgive him or herself, even a little, is the moment in which he or she becomes to some degree lovable.

We not only romanticize the future; we have also made it into a growth industry, a parlor game and a disaster movie all at the same time.

Mercy is a source of life because we breathe our own spirits through it into the lives of others.

The future is religion and commerce, aphrodisiac and Benzedrine, a mother of mysterious comfort and a mistress of familiar ravishments ever on the verge of embracing or destroying us.

The real test of friendship is can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?

Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple.

Life does not hurt nearly as much if we have learned to listen to ourselves and to recognize how fully and richly we are trying to tell ourselves the truth.

There are times when silence is the most sacred of responses.

Is childhood ever long enough, or a happy time, or even a beautiful summer day? All of these carry the seeds of the same fierce mystery that we call death.

The moment an individual can accept and forgive himself even a little is the moment in which he becomes to some degree lovable.

The real test of friendship is: can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?

We need to stop telling [women], "Get a mentor and you will excel." Instead, we need to tell them, "Excel and you will get a mentor.

Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery.

And it's sad because it's like a surprise to people - almost an anomaly - when artists are actually refined and trained on an instrument. That's the last thing people think about.

Religion is a set of social and political institutions and spirituality is a private pursuit which may or may not take place in a church setting.

I'd never done any film or television. Well, I'd done one little stupid commercial in Boston when I was doing theater, but that was it.

At the end of the day, it's still a show about guys who ride extremely fast motorcycles for a living.

I think the combination of genius and celebrity, in the case of Bobby Fischer, was a dangerous cocktail.

Americans don't think we should be raising taxes on anybody, especially in the middle of a recession.

It's a pity that I can never really enjoy my movies because, after the mixing, your capacity as a spectator just disappears. I have to think about what I felt just before the mixing.