Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations.

The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.

Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.

I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate - it's apathy. It's not giving a damn.

It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.

The minute we stop learning, we begin death, the process of dying. We learn from each other with every action we perform. We are teaching goodness or evil every time we step out of the house and into the street.

I've always thought that people need to feel good about themselves and I see my role as offering support to them, to provide some light along the way.

When we sit at the table, there is more going on than satisfying hunger. It is sad to think of those who eat simply to satisfy their hunger and who do not permit themselves to linger under the many spells offered by a good meal - the satisfaction of our hearts, our minds and our spirits.

If I don't have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.

If you're an advocate of gentleness, you're simplistic and naive. If you're an advocate of despair and hate, you're sophisticated.

I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be. You can also stop and say, 'No, I won't do it, I won't behave his way anymore. I'm lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving,' and then you do it.

We are no longer puppets being manipulated by outside powerful forces: we become the powerful force ourselves.

I've learned that you learn best by modeling. If you want people to learn, do it!

Love always creates, it never destroys. In this lies man's only promise.

I have too much respect for people to try to control them. But they are estranged from love, afraid to reach out and touch one another. We're afraid to appear sentimental or speak in platitudes because people will say, 'What a jerk!' It takes courage in our culture to be a lover.

You can be a follower of Muhammad or Jesus or Buddha or whomever. Always, they said that the most essential factor is to love your neighbor. And to love you.

I was lucky to have such a loving, crazy family. I learned to give and share.

If we wish to free ourselves from enslavement, we must choose freedom and the responsibility this entails.

All of my youth growing up in my Italian family was focused around the table. That's where I learned about love.

We want to gently remind people that we don't have forever. In my work, I hear parents complain all the time that their children grow up so fast. But they don't take the time to sit down and talk to each other. The last bastion of getting together is around the table.

I am a teacher. And I think I am a serious one who happens to be enjoying life.

Food is celebratory. People who don't cook don't know how much fun they're missing.

The way to anybody's heart is through a thoughtfully-prepared, beautifully-executed, lovingly-presented meal.

The best students come from homes where education is revered: where there are books, and children see their parents reading them.

I got the copyright for love!

I have been a teacher myself all my life. I have an intense passion to share with people. Our only salvation is in knowledge, in learning.

I've spoken in every state in the union, meeting and hugging the people who later bought my books. I spoke to anybody who wanted to hear me, including 1,000 nuns who could pay me only with homemade bread.

My mother made soft polenta often, and as a child, I would watch her stir until she looked like her arm would fall off.

Biologically and physiologically, we are not equal. Some of us learn better at different times of day. Some learn best visually, some auditorially, some tactilely, by touching.