The whole purpose of letting pain be pain is this: to let go of pain. By entering into it, we see that we are strong enough and capable enough to move through it. We find out that it ultimately has a gift for us.

Sustainability is another word for justice, for what is just is sustainable and what is unjust is not.

Compassion is not pity ... compassion never considers an object as weak or inferior. Compassion, one might say, works from a strength born of awareness of shared weakness, and not from someone else's weakness. And from the awareness of the mutuality of us all. Thus to put down another as in pity is to put down oneself.

Creation is all space, all time - all things past, present, and future.

I am a Westerner. We're not going to change the West by going East. The East has a lot to teach us, but essentially it's like a mirror, saying, hey, can't you see what's here in your own religion, what are you, stupid?

Having a studio tell you when to jump and how high eight months of the year for six years is not a relationship I want to get into again.

I'm either going to have the career I want doing films, or I'll do something else - I'll be gone.