Well I travelled quite a lot in the east, and one of the things that impressed me greatly was the buddhist notion of the continuity of things, the wheel of life which is what we're talking about, the ever turning wheel.

Once you accept the existence of God - however you define him, however you explain your relationship to him - then you are caught forever with his presence in the center of all things.

And I've always worked on the principle that if it interests me enough to write about it, then it must interest a lot of other people.

None of us is guaranteed against failure or corruption of any kind; witness what's going on in the world in this moment, the follies of human nature and the failures of human nature.

All institutions are prone to corruption and to the vices of their members.

If God be God and man a creature made in image of the divine intelligence, his noblest function is the search for truth.

If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine.

Well I travelled quite a lot in the east, and one of the things that impressed me greatly was the buddhist notion of the continuity of things, the wheel of life which is what we're talking about, the ever turning wheel.

Man is a creature who walks in two worlds and traces upon the walls of his cave the wonders and the nightmare experiences of his spiritual pilgrimage.

There are still things I want to do but they're not necessary for me to do. I'm not clinging to anything that I can't open my hands and let go.

You know one of the causes of modern despair is the fact that we have had proposed to us, from various quarters, an impossible perfection.

One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.

You are also caught with the fact that man is a creature who walks in two worlds and traces upon the walls of his cave the wonders and the nightmare experiences of his spiritual pilgrimage.

I've always worked on the principle that if it interests me enough to write about it, then it must interest a lot of other people.

I look out of this window and I think this is a cosmos, this is a huge creation, this is one small corner of it. The trees and birds and everything else and I'm part of it. I didn't ask to be put here, I've been lucky in finding myself here.

The fact is that the learning process goes on, and so long as the voices are not stilled and the singers go on singing some of it gets through.

Ever since the Greeks, we have been drunk with language! We have made a cage with words and shoved our God inside!

When asked if I consider myself Buddhist, the answer is, Not really. But it's more my religion than any other because I was brought up with it in an intellectual and spiritual environment. I don't practice or preach it, however.

I grew up in a mostly Buddhist environment.

I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some sort of Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.

Because of my Buddhist practice, I'm never lacking for inspiration.

My first encounter with Buddhist dharma would be in my early 20s. Like most young men, I was not particularly happy.

A Buddhist or a good atheist is as acceptable to God as a good Catholic.

I think Gore does have to worry. He is tied to Bill Clinton. We know that there were telephone calls that he made from his office. We know that there were visits to the Buddhist temple.

Mary, my little girl, was confirmed in a Buddhist temple. She saw the Life write up on Buddhism, with pictures of the ceremony, and she said she wanted to be confirmed there because she only liked Jesus as a kid. She was a little disappointed in him when he grew up.

So, immediately after that, I got a commission to write a piece for chamber orchestra, and in working on the material I discovered it was possible to incorporate the Buddhist teachings into the music, so that's what I started to do.

Well I travelled quite a lot in the east, and one of the things that impressed me greatly was the buddhist notion of the continuity of things, the wheel of life which is what we're talking about, the ever turning wheel.

I am a practicing Buddhist. I have been for 25 years.

Right now, I'm following the Buddhist principle: Smile as abuse is hurled your way and this too shall pass.

I admire the fact that the central core of Buddhist teaching involves mindfulness and loving kindness and compassion.

I don't know what religious people do. I kind of wished I'd been a Christian with the blind faith that God is doing the right thing. As a Buddhist, you feel like you have more control over the situation, and that you can change your karma.

I used a lot of pancake makeup and a prayer, and a Buddhist chant.

Unfortunately, however, I have too many desires to make a good Buddhist.

I want to love all the children of God - Christian, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist - everyone. I want to love gay Christians and straight Christians.

You haven't partied until you've partied at dawn in complete silence with Buddhist monks.

I think my Buddhist practice has a profound influence on my life and encompasses my creative projects.

Well, I'm Buddhist, Ray, and so part of my Buddhism has allowed me to look a little more deeply at people and the events in my life that created me. And I think a lot of that Buddhism comes out in the world view in this novel.

When she was younger, my mother was quite committed to Roman Catholicism. But she got disillusioned with it and moved closer to something like Buddhist beliefs near the end of her life.

Yoga has brought me closer to myself. It's helped me realize the interconnectedness of the mind, body and spirit, in the Buddhist sense of the word.

I'm a Buddhist.

I'm not a Buddhist, or a card-carrying member of any religion.

Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

If it came to saving the life of one priest or sacrificing the life of an entire congregation, the church would save the life of the priest. Which is backwards, of course.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

You have choices to make about what you do with the rest of your life.