You have to take strength from the people that love you and the people that love Barbara and the huge number of expressions of sympathy and compassion and support. That has been extremely moving.

I immediately called the command center of the Department of Justice to let them know that my wife was on a plane that had been hijacked. I mainly wanted them know there was another hijacked plane out there.

The calls that I have received from President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the fact that there are other people that are suffering every bit as much as I am, and that our whole nation is going through a tragedy together, I think we have to think about those things.

Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples?

She said it had been hijacked shortly after takeoff. By this time, the plane had been in the air - again, I'm presuming that it took off on time - for over an hour.

My wife had taken off on a plane. Two airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center. I, of course, like any other person, felt potentially devastated, panicky a little bit.

You have to take strength from the people that love you and the people that love Barbara and the huge number of expressions of sympathy and compassion and support. That has been extremely moving.

Well, she managed to - Barbara was capable of doing practically anything if she set her mind to it. In retrospect, I'm not surprised that Barbara managed to get collect calls through.

The very idea of marriage is basic to recognition as equals in our society; any status short of that is inferior, unjust, and unconstitutional.

The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that marriage is one of the most fundamental rights that we have as Americans under our Constitution.

The plane took off at 8:10 in the morning - or that's when it was scheduled to take off. And that's when I believe it took off. I had been in my office at the Department of Justice. Someone told me that there had been the two strikes that occurred at the World Trade Center.

I wanted it not to be true. I wanted it not to be her plane. I wanted it - I wanted, if it was her plane, to have somehow survived because she was in the back of the airplane. But we know that doesn't happen, not with those sorts of things.

Every time you make a guess of what a judge is going to do... you're wrong, so I try to stay away from that.

HB2 discriminates against fellow citizens because of who they are. This law directly challenges the legitimacy of the identity of transgender persons and then compels them to deny it every time they use a public restroom.

Horrible things can happen to you, and horrible things happened to us on September 11. But if we look for love and happiness and fulfillment, we will find it.

I do believe that people of all religions have a right to build edifices or structures or places of religious worship or study where the community allows them to do it under zoning laws and that sort of thing, and that we don't want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for people of religious faith.

I grew up in California, and when I read that Proposition 8 was on the ballot, I was disappointed because it seemed to be inconsistent with the spirit of the state, with the independence and diversity of the frontier that California has always been.

I'd always felt from as far back as I can remember that where the issue of marriage is concerned, individuals should have the opportunity to marry and not be discriminated against.

I've been strongly opposed to racial discrimination and anything like that my whole life. Maybe it's thanks to my parents and where I grew up and that sort of thing, but particularly with gay and lesbian citizens, I've seen that people can be cruel, and it's very distressing.

The more gays and lesbians come out - the more people realize that they have a friend who's gay, which they may not have known before, and they realize this person has the same aspirations and desires and need to be committed and to be part of a community - then they become more accepting.

The right to marry is vital in society. It's a right that's older than the Bill of Rights because it goes back to the common law.

There are libertarian conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and social conservatives. I feel conservative in terms of limited government, individual responsibility, self-sufficiency - that sort of thing.

Ultimately, the reason we have a Constitution, the reason we have separation of powers, the reason we have the Fourteenth Amendment is to provide the courts with the opportunity to override the will of the people when the will of the people discriminates against a segment of our society.

Voters, whatever their political views, should rise up against politicians who want to dilute the Bill of Rights to perpetuate their tenure in office.

When politicians seek to restrict political speech, it is invariably to protect their own incumbency and avoid having to defend their policies in the marketplace of ideas.

The final causes, then, of compassion are to prevent and to relieve misery.

The super power that I would choose would be compassion. Because that's what I think it takes to make it through life-an understanding, a give and take. It saves an awful lot of resentment.

Something called 'the Oklahoma Standard' became known throughout the world. It means resilience in the face of adversity. It means a strength and compassion that will not be defeated.

At the end of the day, love and compassion will win.

The law has no compassion. And justice is administered without compassion.

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

Bush promised a foreign policy of humility and a domestic policy of compassion. He has given us a foreign policy of arrogance and a domestic policy that is cynical, myopic and cruel.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love.

You can do and use the skills that you have. The schools need you. The teachers need you. Students and parents need you. They need your actual person: your physical personhood and your open minds and open ears and boundless compassion, sitting next to them, listening and nodding and asking questions for hours at a time.

Happiness and peace will come to earth only as the light of love and human compassion enter the souls of men.

I am so proud of Michigan's citizens for the kindness and generosity they have shown in assisting in this endeavor. It is truly heartwarming to see the compassion shown for those in need.

Some people are filled by compassion and a desire to do good, and some simply don't think anything's going to make a difference.

Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.

What President Bush has done speaks more than words about his feeling of compassion and commitment to people.

Human it is to have compassion on the unhappy.

No, you're not allowed to be bossy when you're married. You have to learn compromise, and compassion and patience.

In times such as these, people should recognize that evil knows no borders, knows no limits and knows no compassion. Those around the globe that value freedom must continue to persevere even in the darkest of times.

I do it because I want to exercise people's compassion and I do it because I really believe that for some reason what I do is important and meaningful.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

I think one of the best words in the English language is compassion. I think it holds everything. It holds love, it holds care... and if everybody just did something. We all make a difference.

I don't think, there's no possible way for me, anyway, to play a character that I haven't found some sort of sublime compassion for and I related to Deborah on a way that almost, initially, almost in a way maybe someone in the audience might.

Certainly it is wrong to be cruel to animals and the destruction of a whole species can be a great evil. The capacity for feelings of pleasure and pain and for the form of life of which animals are capable clearly impose duties of compassion and humanity in their case.