The world is intertwined and we therefore have to be gentle in the way that we treat one another and the Earth, so that our impact on others is benevolent and good.

My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim.

You have to have a government that does give both money and energy to function in a leadership role modeling giving for the people. Government is supposed to lead by example in many cases.

Government should exist in order to help fortify the country and make those who are in need better able to meet their own.

I absolutely do believe that we need to not be so myopic. We ought to throw open widely the windows on the world in order to learn more about it.

You really need to love something or someone in order to work hard enough to be very successful. You have to believe in something and have a certain optimism.

Faith and optimism come from love.

Government that's not particularly caring and is hands off is not particularly inspiring.

Meanness is the one thing I do get upset about on those rare occasions when I see it.

That's a powerful way to love, when you accept your children, however they emerge, with all their peculiarities.

Children come into the world with a lot of personality already imbedded in them.

Some doors are open, but we are still searching for the right keys.

I went to see John Mayall at the Marquee, with Peter Green on guitar, and that was a particularly good gig.

I believe we're all in denial about the people we love.

The song succeeds or fails just based on whether you argue your point successfully.

His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.

It's cool to play a sinister bad guy who also has a human side.

Giving. What flows away from you flows back magnified: Become a joyful giver.

Life is not significant details, illuminated by a flash, fixed forever. Photographs are.

Someone wrote a piece about Henry Green in The Partisan Review that was so intriguing that I got one of his novels, Loving, I believe, which was the first that came to attention in the United States.

Everybody complains that people are so flaky in LA. I'd rather be flaky than mean.