"Life is a series of pulls back and forth. you want to do one thing, but you're bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted."
"So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. 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."
"The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in."
"Let it come in. We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, Love is the only rational act."
"The culture doesn't encourage you to think about such things until you're about to die. We're so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks - we're involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don't get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, 'is this all? is this all i want? is something missing?"
"You need someone to probe you in that direction. It won't just happen that way."
"Everyone knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it." "Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live."
"If you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time - then you might not be as ambitious as you are."
"Even I don't know what spiritual development really means. But i do know we're deficient in some way. We're too involved in materialistic things, and they don't satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted."
"The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn't the family."
"Love each other or perish."
"There is no experience like having children. There's no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children."
At 78, he was giving as an adult and taking as a child.
"I am talking to you. I am thinking about you."
"So many people with far smaller problems are so self-absorbed, their eyes glaze over if you speak for more than thirty seconds. They already have something else in mind - a friend to call, a fax to send, a lover they're daydreaming about. They only snap back to full attention when you finish talking, at which point they say 'uh-uhh' or 'yeah, really' and fake their way back to the moment."
"Everyone is in such a hurry. People haven't found meaning in their lives, so they're running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they found those things are empty, too, and they keep running."
"I think marriage is a very important thing to do, and you're missing a hell of a lot if you don't try it."
"Don't let go too soon, but don't hang on too long."
"Death ends a life, not a relationship."
