“Reality to us is thinghood , consisting of substances that occupy space; even God is conceived by most of us as a thing.”

The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living.

Awareness of the divine begins with wonder.

One of the major symptoms of the general crisis existent in our world today is our lack of sensitivity to words.

God is not nice. God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake.

The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song.

The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference.

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods.

But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.

The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.

Proximity to the crowd, to the majority view, spells the death of creativity. For a soul can create only when alone, and some are chosen for the flowering that takes place in the dark avenues of night.

Self-respect is the root of discipline

This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel the hidden love and wisdom in all things.

Aeons hence, when of many of our cherished theories only shreds will remain, that cosmic tapestry will continue to shine.

For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs.

Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline.

First impressions are always the most important.

I’ve been playing music most of my life.

Protein was the most valued ingredient 250 years ago: It was the rarest thing. Now the rarest thing we have is time: time to cook and time to eat.

Even [Ernst] Hemingway, perhaps the most intentionally non-political of American writers, became passionately partisan during the Spanish Civil War.

The most meaningful way to succeed is to help others succeed.

I love travelling, and had the pleasure of being in the most developed country in the world and then parts of two of the most pristine natural areas of the world: the Galapagos islands and the Equador Amazon jungle.

As soon as you lay down, that’s when the most bizarre things start coming out of her mouth. ‘Goodnight, baby.’ ‘Do you think we were together in a past life?’ ‘Yeah, and I died of sleep deprivation. Go to bed.’ ‘Don’t you feel like we’re soul…’

Really living without clutter takes an iron will … This involves eternal watchfulness and that oldest and most relentless of the housewife’s occupations, picking up.