“In the end generosity is the best way of becoming more, more, and more joyful.”

It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.

Discovering more joy does not, save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak.

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to cycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring.

We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.

The path of joy was connection and the path of sorrow was separation.

Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone’s back.

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream to find out why they’re falling in.

A person is a person through other persons; you can’t be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships.

If you are setting out to be joyful you are not going to end up being joyful. You’re going to find yourself turned in on yourself. It’s like a flower. You open, you blossom, really because of other people.

Much depends on your attitude. If you are filled with negative judgment and anger, then you will feel separate from other people. You will feel lonely.

Forgiving is not forgetting; its actually remembering–remembering and not using your right to hit back. Its a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you dont want to repeat what happened.

To protect our children, we must talk to them about rape.

A very important but difficult piece of renewing relationships is accepting responsibility for our part in any conflict.

We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are. A person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of these communities is the family.

If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible. There’s nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible.

Forgiveness is truly the grace by which we enable another person to get up, and get up with dignity, to begin anew.

When you write me into your story, don’t set my end in stone. Feel free to let me go. I’d like to join your story, but remember I have my own.

Time began when you were born. It will end when you die.

If only we knew which goodbyes were our last.

To exercise no-thought and rest in nothing is the first step toward resting in Tao. To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step toward attaining Tao.

In the end, what matters is how you lived your life. Were you happy? Did you love enough? Did you reach for the stars?

Maybe not this year or the next but one day they’d end up married. In this lifetime and every one after it. Just knowing that I’d get to watch them find each other and fall in love in every life made me smile.

Everybody knows that I am not usually patient enough to actually sit down and watch one of my own films from the beginning to the end – I never do.

Some relationships don’t end well, but you will learn love from everything.