A surgeon in charge of my surgery rotation said that he knew who I was but that he was going to treat me as if I was normal. I sincerely thanked him and told him I would try to act that way.

I was in the kitchen drinking coffee when I heard Coretta cry, Martin, Martin, come quickly! I put down my cup and ran toward the living room. As I approached the front window Coretta pointed joyfully to a slowly moving bus: Darling, it's empty!

The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

It is no longer sufficient to love others as himself and to do as much for them as he would do for himself; rather, a repugnance arises in him… towards the will-to-live, towards the core and essence of that world recognized as filled with misery.

People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been--for a moment's relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.

So also in a marriage or in helping a teenager through a difficult identity crisis—there is no quick fix, where you can just move in and make everything right with a positive mental attitude and a bunch of success formulas.

You cannot save people. You can only love them.

An act of love, a voluntary taking on oneself of some of the pain of the world, increases the courage and love and hope of all.

We can't always see people's pain; they can always feel our love.

...what I can do is offer myself, wholehearted and present, to walk with the people I love through the fear and the mess. That's all any of us can do. That's what we're here for.

Where there is unconditional love, the wound of one is the wound of all.