To laugh is to risk appearing a fool, to weep is to risk appearing too sentimental, to reach out for another is to risk involvement, and to expose feelings is to risk exposing one's true self.

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Don't spend your precious time asking "Why isn't the world a better place?" It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is "How can I make it better?" To that there is an answer.

Love yourself-accept yourself-forgive yourself-and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.

The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.

Relish love in your old age! Aged love is like aged wine; it becomes more satisfying, more refreshing, more valuable, more appreciated and more intoxicating!

Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.

I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate - it's apathy. It's not giving a damn.

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.

Everybody needs a hug. It changes your metabolism.

Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time.

As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other you will find what is needful for you in a book.

The house a woman creates is a Utopia. She can't help it - can't help trying to interest her nearest and dearest not in happiness itself but in the search for it.

As writers and readers, as sinners and citizens, our realism and our aesthetic sense make us wary of crediting the positive note.

Jem drew back from her, looking dazed. "By the Angel," he said. "Perhaps we do need a chaperon.

I challenge myself to take at least one fashion risk a day, otherwise I get stuck.

I remember reading once that some fellows use language to conceal thought; but it's been my experience that a good many more use it instead of thought.

I don't spend most of my life in front of the media.

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

That's one of the greatest curses ever inflicted on the human race, memory.

It's not fun to keep secrets, but sometimes you have to do it to protect yourself. And to protect people around you. - Meredith, p112