Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

Don't ever criticize yourself. Don't go around all day long thinking, 'I'm unattractive, I'm slow, I'm not as smart as my brother.' God wasn't having a bad day when he made you... If you don't love yourself in the right way, you can't love your neighbour. You can't be as good as you are supposed to be.

I always think about the idea that God never gives you more than you can handle, and just the idea that God would be looking at me and thinking, 'Eh, I think she can handle more.' And the angels thinking, 'What are you doing? You're a lunatic.' And God being like, 'No, no, trust me. She can handle this.'

All those who run away to ashrams, thinking they are doing something great are just performing daily chores there - cooking, gardening etc. After all, the place has to be run.

Gardening is seen as a pastime that is almost like belonging to the Church of England - a sign of maturity and wisdom and right thinking.

I do some of my best thinking while pulling weeds.

All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

It's important to refresh the way of thinking and doing things musically. You can get so stuck in what you've done in the past that you can't move on into the future.

One of our things is that money follows; it does not lead. So we want people that are fired up and passionate about their mission... and people that aren't so married to spreadsheets and thinking that kind of voodoo controls the future. Because it doesn't.

The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking.

I like what the future holds. I don't like thinking about the past.

In football, I have learned to forget the past, think about the present, and the future will come as it may - thinking about it would be a mistake.

When thinking about the future, it is fashionable to be pessimistic. Yet the evidence unequivocally belies such pessimism. Over the past centuries, humanity's lot has improved dramatically - in the developed world, where it is rather obvious, but also in the developing world, where life expectancy has more than doubled in the past 100 years.

The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people's hopes.

Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.

Right now people are interested in genetic engineering to help the human race. That's a noble cause, and that's where we should be heading. But once we get past that - once we understand what genetic diseases we can deal with - when we start thinking about the future, there's an opportunity to create some new life-forms.

The only thing that can save us as a species is seeing how we're not thinking about future generations in the way we live.

I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

I'm definitely guilty of thinking something is funny but thinking the audience won't. Then three years later I will finally try it and it'll kill them. I got to give them more credit.

What's funny about that is when I was writing Twilight just for myself and not thinking of it as a book, I was not thinking about publishing, and yet at the same time I was casting it in my head. Because when I read books, I see them very visually.

I like the ironic pomposity of a stand-up comedian. Like all those comedians thinking they can bring down Coca-Cola. They forget to be funny.

I'm always thinking of stuff; I just don't sit down and write it. I come up with material more as I go along; if something funny happens, I'll make a note of it on my phone.

You never saw Peter Sellers the actor trying to make you laugh. All he was doing was the character. What I'm saying is that I don't think you should know you're in a movie. I don't like it when actors are winking at the audience and saying, 'Right, isn't this funny? Are you with me?'