“Your life is not going to be easy, and it should not be easy. It ought to be hard. It ought to be radical; it ought to be restless; it ought to lead you to places you’d rather not go.”

I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.

Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.

It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.

Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

Prayer is not what is done by us, but rather what is done by the Holy Spirit in us.

I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.

Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next.

Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.

If I were to let my life be taken over by what is urgent, I might very well never get around to what is essential.

Your heart is greater than your wounds.

What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.

Keep a space where God can let something totally new take place.

You don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.

The only feelings that do not heal are the ones you hide.

Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.

To accept someone when everything is going right is easy. But when things are falling apart around you and you stick together, that’s the test of a relationship. Love is when we have every reason to break up but we do not.

Rather than trying to put an end to Eminem or some other rapper, politicians should think about why they’re rapping. It’s easier to try to censor some kid who’s swearing about poverty than it is to stop the poverty.

To me, the mind and body are one. I’m very transparent, in a way, and people can very easily make out what mood I’m in.

It’s easy to be ignorant but it’s very intricate to be aware.

When you first start out, people think this is super easy and you find your crew super quick. But you’ve really got to go through songwriter boot camp to find your people.

Fame is directly related to the kind of support you have from an audience and the love and support I have from audience is so immense and so huge, that the percentage of negativity is so small compared to that that it would be very easy for it to lose itself.

Comebacks are not at all easy. After a major surgery, the difficult part is to conquer the inner demons. It’s all in the mind. Only an individual can overcome his fears.

It is easier to produce a film on your own than convincing another person to come on board.