Short

Don't confuse success with excellence. The poet Robert Penn Warren once told me that 'careerism is death.'

Fear is the most corrosive force in human life. It deforms us and crushes the best in us.

Live your own life, not the life that others expect of you. The only life worth living is one that is truly your own.

Our wounds are our best lessons, our life's biggest teachers. I have seen powerful love that has changed me forever. It has made me try to walk in other shoes, show more compassion and humility.

I just wanted him to keep staring at the bird, because we both know that it could fly away at any moment.

If all you ever do is all you've ever done, then all you'll ever get is all you've ever got.

The most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.

The story of your lives will be the story of your struggle to be true to the ideas you believe in.

To make a difference in this world, you must be involved. By serving a higher calling here or abroad, you'll make your lives richer and build a more hopeful future for our world.

The world owes you nothing. You will only get from life what you invest in it.

Don't be afraid of change. If something is truly not working and you have sincerely done all you can do to make it work, chuck it and start over.

Process without purpose is pretty much the definition of bureaucracy. Never let the how get in the way of the what.