“God is not about religion. Religion is a structure that should house our faith in God. Too often it is used to hurt other people in God’s name.”

God knew we would make mistakes. Life is all about mistakes. It is constant change and growth. Our greatest challenges in life will one day be known to us as our greatest teachers.

Service is a balm to both the spirit and the body.

If love is truly a verb, if help is a verb, if forgiveness is a verb, if kindness is a verb, then you can do something about it.

To become as perfect as a mortal being can become, we need to bring the mind, body, and spirit into total harmony…We must add to that harmony Christ like love and righteousness.

When I awaken in the morning, I am thankful for a new day. I am thankful for everything that I have materially.

We are responsible for one another. Collectively so. The world is a joint effort. We might say it is like a giant puzzle, and each one of us is a very important and unique part of it.

God’s love is just like the sun, constant and shining for us all. And just as the earth rotates around the sun, it is the natural order for us to move away for a season, and then to return closer, but always within the appropriate time.

In our thoughts and words we create our own weaknesses and our own strengths.

All religions upon the earth are necessary because there are people who need what they teach. … Each church fulfills spiritual needs that perhaps others cannot fill. No one church can fulfill everybody’s needs at every level.

I may not understand why I have the illness, but I sense that it is there for a purpose, and so I thank God for it. I ask Him to allow me to expand beyond my narrow-mindedness and self-centeredness so that I can see the good that comes from everything.

Above all, I was shown that love is supreme. I saw that truly without love we are nothing. We are here to help each other, to care for each other, to understand, forgive, and serve one another. We are here to have love for every person born on earth.

In our thoughts and words we create our own weaknesses and our own strengths. Our limitations and joys begin in our hearts. We can always replace negative with positive.

Our limitations and joys begin in our hearts. We can always replace negative with positive.

It often seems easier not to move on; even the muck and mire in which we’re stuck seems less fearful and less challenging than the unknown path ahead.

When you have faith, you move. Complacency actually shows lack of faith. When it’s time to move in a new direction in order to progress, the right people will come to us.

If we understood the power of our thoughts, we would guard them more closely.

Illogical thinkers throw names and slurs around because they have no arguments with which to rebut their opponents. Rational people have to keep hammering their points home.

Indeed there’s a woundy luck in names.

Your name is the most important thing you own. Don’t ever do anything to disgrace or cheapen it.

We do not know what is being done in our name. Worse, we do not ask.

People always say it’s a shame someone as talented as Ryan Giggs or George Best before him never played in a World Cup or European Championship and I don’t want my name to be added to that list.

Bei Dao became the most well-known name for me because of certain criticism of my work. Bei Dao was the name under which my work was criticized. So I became more well-known under Bei Dao than under the other names.

In Hollywood a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel.

I’ve been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prize fighter, a man-hater, you name it. They call me Battling Bella, Mother Courage, and a Jewish mother with more complaints than Portnoy.