We are each made for goodness, love and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths.

We mustn't romanticize suffering. It can turn people bitter and hard, although it does seem to have been almost indispensable in making people into the kind of leaders that we admire.

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

The abolition of the death penalty is making us a civilized society. It shows we actually do mean business when we say we have reverence for life.

One of the things that has always surprised me is why Americans are so patient. Because they have seen not just that freedom has come, what they have seen is that there are some who used to be poor who are very rich, stinking rich some of them.

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.

I say somewhat facetiously, "I'm so glad I'm not God." Can you imagine being God and looking at Syria and saying: "These are my children. Look at what they're doing to each other."