"We use the word 'hope' perhaps more often than any other word in the vocabulary: 'I hope it's a nice day.' 'Hopefully, you're doing well.' 'So how are things going along? Pretty good. Going to be good tomorrow? Hope so.'"

"Nonetheless, do I have respect for people who believe in the hereafter? Of course I do. I might add, perhaps even a touch of envy too, because of the solace."

"That's why I wrote this book: to show how these people can imbue us with hope. I read somewhere that when a person takes part in community action, his health improves. Something happens to him or to her biologically. It's like a tonic."

"Religion obviously played a role in this book and the previous book, too."

"I do find comedy difficult. I don't know why. Maybe I think about it too much. There's a tremendous amount of pressure to be funny."

"Life takes its path and sometimes there are people to blame. Of course there are bad people in this world. Good, bad, it happens unfortunately. But in a way I think if there was more focus on the good, more good would happen."

"You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think."

"A desire arises in the mind. It is satisfied immediately another comes. In the interval which separates two desires a perfect calm reigns in the mind. It is at this moment freed from all thought, love or hate. Complete peace equally reigns between two mental waves."