“Everyone is an ocean inside. Every individual walking the street. Everyone is a universe of thoughts, and insights, and feelings. But every person is crippled in his or her own way by our inability to truly present ourselves to the world.”

A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.

Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.

True redemption is when guilt leads to good.

The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.

But then it passed, as all things do.

When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.

In many parts of the world, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. But I think we need women to solve the problems that men create.

There was so much goodness in my life. So much happiness. I wondered whether I deserved any of it.

It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

It’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.

You see, some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well, you have to see and feel.

And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.

But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.

The problem, of course, was that [he] saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can’t love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little.

The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery.

He is a great leader by example. Someone whom I have always admired for his ability to remain balanced and have the sense of equanimity about his captaincy.

I always was like, “Yo, I’m here, I might as well get what I could take.”

I did my best. I guess my best wasn’t good enough.

I could put everything I got in the bank on my abilities and skill and will, and what I’m capable of doing in the ring.

I just have an inability to lie.

When I step in the ring, I bring everything I have.

I was an okay singer. I was an okay dancer. But acting? Never could do it.