We may not be able to stop evil in the world, but how we treat one another is entirely up to us.

In my daughters I see her every day, her joy, her capacity for wonder. I won't try to describe how deeply I mourn her passing still. I know that she was the kindest, most generous spirit I have ever known, and that what is best in me I owe to her.

If people can learn to hate they can learn to love.

Still, in the aggregate, at least, I wanted somehow to save them—send them to school, give them a trade, drain them of the hate that had been filling their heads.

The most important stuff I've learned I think I've learned from novels. It has to do with empathy. It has to do with being comfortable with the notion that the world is complicated and full of grays, but there's still truth there to be found, and that you have to strive for that and work for that. And the notion that it's possible to connect with some[one] else even though they're very different from you.

Never be mean in anything. Never be false. Never be cruel. I can always be hopeful of you.

Because nothing wondrous can come in this world unless it rests on the shoulders of kindness.

Mother, you can still hold hold on but forgive, forgive and give for long as long as we both shall live, I forgive you, Mother.

You can't let your heart go bad like that, like sour milk. There's always a chance you'll want to use it later.

If his guilt made him a tyrant before men, it made him like a child before his God. Not a helpless or pleading child, but a petulant one, the type of tough boy who's known too little love and is quick to blame others for his mistakes.

Maybe it's true what they say, that as long as you're nursing your own pain, whatever it is, you'll turn your back on others in the same boat. You'll want to believe the fix they're in is their own damn fault.

nothing wondrous can come in this world unless it rests on the shoulders of kindness.