“It isn’t the things that are happening to us that cause us to suffer, it’s what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening. The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.”

Appreciate everything, even the ordinary. Especially the ordinary.

Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.

You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.

Feeling irritated, restless, afraid, and hopeless is a reminder to listen more carefully.

Feel the feelings and drop the story.

The best spiritual instruction is when you wake up in the morning and say, ‘I wonder what’s going to happen today.’ And then carry that kind of curiosity through your life.

Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.

All situations teach you, and often it’s the tough ones that teach you best.

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.

Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive.

Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.

So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.

Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.

Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patient with yourself and don’t lose your sense of perspective.

All the wars, all the hatred, all the ignorance in the world come out of being so invested in our opinions.

Over the years, I realized there was a Republican philosophy that I liked. And then they lost it. And LIBERTARIANS had more of it. Because what I really believe is, let’s spend a little more time leaving everybody alone.

Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly.

The past was great no doubt, but I sincerely believe that the future will be more glorious still.

I’ve always believed that a person is smart. It’s people that are stupid.

I don’t believe in life after death. But I do believe in some grinding destiny that watches over us on earth. If I didn’t, the safety valve would give and the boiler would explode.

When workers fall back on violence, they are lost. Oh, they might win some of their demands and might end a strike a little earlier, but they give up their imagination, their creativity, their will to work hard and to suffer for what they believe is right.

I’m an American for marriage equality. I believe that love comes in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. So whether you’re LGBT or straight, your love is valid, beautiful, and an incredible gift.

I believe that I definitely wasn’t given this voice just to sing. I think it was given to me for a bigger purpose.