Fortunately for me, my mother loved travel. Our first non-beach family trip abroad - to England, France, and Switzerland - came when I was 11, and thereafter, we often tagged along on my father's European business trips.

Travel is an exercise partly in broadening yourself and partly in defining your own limits.

I started traveling out of curiosity, but I have come to believe in travel's political importance, that encouraging a nation's citizenry to travel may be as important as encouraging school attendance, environmental conservation, or national thrift. You cannot understand the otherness of places you have not encountered.

Gay rights are not primarily marriage rights, and for the millions who live in unaccepting places with no resources, dignity remains elusive. I am lucky to have forged meaning and built identity, but that's still a rare privilege. And gay people deserve more, collectively, than the crumbs of justice.

When I was born, the wisdom was that homosexuality was an illness; that it was caused largely by somebody's mother, and a distorted relationship with the mother. And now, as I live my life - married to a husband, with kids - it's an identity.

Never forget that the truest luxury is imagination, and that being a writer gives you the leeway to exploit all of the imagination's curious intricacies, to be what you were, what you are, what you will be, and what everyone else is or was or will be, too.

A stereotype may be negative or positive, but even positive stereotypes present two problems: They are cliches, and they present a human being as far more simple and uniform than any human being actually is.

In one sense, every character you create will be yourself. You've never murdered, but your murderer's rage will be drawn from memories of your own extreme anger. Your love scenes will contain hints of your own past kisses and sweet moments.

The crown of life is neither happiness nor annihilation; it is understanding.

Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

Democracy rests upon two pillars: one, the principle that all men are equally entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and the other, the conviction that such equal opportunity will most advance civilization.

Those who won our independence... valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.

America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.

If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.

There are no shortcuts in evolution.

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.

In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action.

The most important political office is that of the private citizen.

Let no American imagine that Zionism is inconsistent with patriotism. Multiple loyalties are objectionable only if they are inconsistent.

Behind every argument is someone's ignorance.

When those of Jewish blood exhibit moral or intellectual superiority, genius or special talent, we feel pride in them, even if they have abjured the faith like Spinoza, Marx, Disraeli or Heine. Despite the meditations of pundits or the decrees of council, our own instincts and acts, and those of others, have defined for us the term 'Jew.'

Confidence isn't optimism or pessimism, and it's not a character attribute. It's the expectation of a positive outcome.

Nations need to understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and India's tradition of dissent and democratic debate is a positive aspect.

Confidence is contagious, but so is failure. Even the Yankees will lose if you persuade them that they will.

Organizational structures that allow divisions and departments to own their turf and people with long tenure to take root creates the same hardened group distinctions as Congressional redistricting to produce homogeneous voting blocs - all of which makes it easier to resist compromise, let alone collaboration.

Your body is the church where Nature asks to be reverenced.

There is no more lively sensation than that of pain; its impressions are certain and dependable, they never deceive as may those of the pleasure women perpetually feign and almost never experience.

Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization.

Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.

'Til the infallibility of human judgements shall have been proved to me, I shall demand the abolition of the penalty of death.

Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust.

No lover, if he be of good faith, and sincere, will deny he would prefer to see his mistress dead than unfaithful.

Never lose sight of the fact that all human felicity lies in man's imagination, and that he cannot think to attain it unless he heeds all his caprices. The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries.

The imagination is the spur of delights... all depends upon it, it is the mainspring of everything; now, is it not by means of the imagination one knows joy? Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?

Truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction.

I'm living on this positive mind frame where I'm only attracting positive things. I'm controlling my energy, I'm eating right, I'm meditating, I'm in the gym, I'm doing all this stuff I'm supposed to be doing. I'm past that young, immature way of thinking. I just want to be great.

Every morning, I wake up and think about 10 different things I'm thankful for, and I continue to spread that love throughout the day, always visualizing, meditating, and growing.

I think it takes a strong man to be in a relationship with a strong woman. A lot of people hear the word 'diva' and think of it as a negative. I see it as a positive. I want somebody who knows what they want out of life and isn't afraid to show it.

One thing about being a stand-up is it's a one-man show. You gotta do everything. You're the producer, writer, director, and the actor. You just gotta be out there and perform and give your all. It's such an honest form of art that it just taught me so much, and it kind of prepared me for manhood at an early age.

Even though I am fortunate to have certain luxuries, sometimes, I am even amazed by what people with money have and do. I want to remind people that just because you might be rich and famous, it doesn't mean you have to take yourself too seriously.

Saturday morning, you knew what was cool by what was on 'Soul Train.'

The thing I adore about Mariah the most is she's probably the most nurturing person I've ever met, like one of those spirits that walks into the room and wants to make sure that everybody's okay and taken care of. For someone to be at her status but be so concerned about others is really cool.

I'm not geeky but I have my geeky, corky moments, and then I've got some aspects of cool in me, I guess.

Mariah is a beautiful and talented person, and I've had a crush on her for as long as I can remember. Every day, my respect for Mariah continues to grow higher. She's a caring, warm and funny person. People have no idea how funny she is! I feel like I've always known she was my forever love.

I am a hopeless romantic, and so is my wife.

Nobody can predict the future. You just have to give your all to the relationship you're in and do your best to take care of your partner, communicate and give them every last drop of love you have. I think one of the most important things in a relationship is caring for your significant other through good times and bad.

To me, a forever love is a bond that can't be broken.