There is no Jesus without Judas, no Martin Luther King, Jr., without the Klan; no Ali without Joe Frazier; no freedom without tyranny. No wisdom exists that does not include perspective. Relativity is the greatest gift.

And I think if you're going to be with somebody, you owe it to them to show yourself.

Love, in the universal sense, is unconditional acceptance. In the individual sense, the one-on-one sense, try this: we can say we love each other if my life is better because you're in it and your life is better because I'm in it. The intensity of the love is weighted by how much better.

I can't think of a subject that is taboo for me, unless it's one I simply don't know anything about.

You put yourself out there in the truest way you can and hope others do the same. You'll connect or you won't, but you did what you could.

So you didn’t tell me it was a messed-up idea to keep this all a secret because. . .” “Because experience is the only teacher,” Hey-Soos says. “Even if I could have told you, it would have been a lecture. Why do you think kids don’t listen to their parents, or people don’t leave churches and do what the preacher tells them? There’s only one thing that’s universal.” “What’s that?” “The truth.

You can't judge Islam by those people any more than you can judge Christians by abortion clinic bombers or white separatists. Love turn to hate at the fringes of any belief system.