I've found myself getting more and more cynical about what's happening to the planet - it makes me furious.
If I'm here, I'll be trying to be a better human being, a better writer, a better friend and a better beloved.
It is only out of ignorance that people are cruel, because they really don't think it will come back.
I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people.
I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare.
I’m grateful for being here, for being able to think, for being able to see, for being able to taste, for appreciating love – for knowing that it exists in a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, and yet love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists.
A leader sees greatness in other people. He nor she can be much of a leader if all she sees is herself.
A fertile soil alone does not carry agriculture to perfection.
I love to tell how I'm suffering because one percent we're paying 25 percent of the total. We're not paying 25 percent of the total taxes on individuals. We're paying maybe 25 percent of the income tax, but the payroll tax is over a third of the receipts of the federal government. And they don't take that from me on capital gains. They don't take that from me on dividends. They take from the woman who comes in and takes the wastebaskets out.
I hope for an America where we can all contend freely and vigorously, but where we will treasure and guard those standards of civility which alone make this nation safe for both democracy and diversity.
My background is Scottish.