“Differ though we might with Christianity’s view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis.”

Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don’t get on with machismo. I’m interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that’s what we are.

You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you’re annoyed with them.

What should worry us is not the number of people that oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so.

An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths – by panicked shouting.

It’s hard loving those who don’t much like themselves: “If you’re so great, why would you think I’m so great.

The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.

Work is most fulfilling when you’re at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.

The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.

Rather than employing it as a supplement to active, conscious seeing, they used the medium as a substitute, paying less attention to the world than they had done previously, taking it on faith that photography automatically assured them possession of it.

Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one’s own ambitions.

One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.

to design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently to take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light of turning on a tap

Architects themselves tend to shy away from the word, preferring instead to talk about the manipulation of space.

The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.

Memory is… similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.

There is real danger of a disconnect between what’s on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it’s not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.

Have you found someone to share your heart with? Are you giving to your community? Are you at peace with yourself? Are you trying to be as human as you can be?

There’s a saying in the scientific community, that every great truth goes through three phases. First, people deny it. Second, they say that it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say that they’ve known it all along.

Let’s create an integrated global community where we have shared benefits and responsibilities, and we don’t fight because of our differences.

The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.

Being the Queen is not all about singing and being a diva is not all about singing. It has much to do with your service to people. And your social contributions to your community and your civic contributions as well.

Right now we have an economy in trouble, and someone who spent their career in the economy is more suited to help fix the economy than someone who spent his life in politics and as a community organizer.

I have never really thought of myself as a writer about religion. And I think one of the things that happened to me as a result of all that is that I think it did for some people, many people, obscure the kind of writer that I actually am.

So I am deeply saddened and shocked over the current legislation that is now in place against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community here in Russia. In my opinion, it is inhumane and it is isolating.