I was destined to work with dying patients. I had no choice when I encountered my first AIDS patient. I felt called to travel some 250,000 miles each year to hold workshops that helped people cope with the most painful aspects of life, death and the transition between the two.

The photograph reverses the purpose of travel, which until now had been to encounter the strange and unfamiliar.

They say travel enables you to encounter your opposite. If this is true, I think I may have met mine in a shepherd's hut in Transylvania.

It requires more strength to be gentle, so it's the everyday encounters of life that I think we've prepared children for and prepared them to be good to other people and to consider other people.

Sports broadcasting is very open now. In the beginning you did encounter more traditional attitudes and get comments. But I'm talking about 12 years ago.

'2001: A Space Odyssey' is a movie that really impressed me as a teenager. And also 'Blade Runner.' And 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' is also one of my favorites. I'm always looking for sci-fi material, and it's difficult to find original and strong material that's not just about weaponry.

It is hard to read a newspaper or watch a television newscast without encountering someone who has come up with a new 'solution' to society's 'problems.'

I believe that not everything we humans encounter in our lives can be neatly and convincingly tucked away inside the orderly cabinetry of science.

Above all things let us never forget that mankind constitutes one great brotherhood; all born to encounter suffering and sorrow, and therefore bound to sympathize with each other.

It's easier to write from my own life, and it's also more fun. I always write about relationships, for instance, whether they're romantic relationships, friendships, encounters... there's always a lesson to be learned from them.

I think sometimes in the focus on deep friendships and on romantic relationships, we can lose sight of how important the small connections we make are with strangers and with people that we may encounter for just a few seconds or a few minutes, whether it's the barista at our coffee shop or the stranger next to us on the subway.

I believe in honesty and integrity, having a belief system that you've thought through and then stick to. I believe in being creative and contributing, and I believe in taking a stand against injustice that you encounter in everyday life and not being idle in that respect.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats - maybe it's imperative that we encounter the defeats - but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

From the beginnings of literature, poets and writers have based their narratives on crossing borders, on wandering, on exile, on encounters beyond the familiar. The stranger is an archetype in epic poetry, in novels. The tension between alienation and assimilation has always been a basic theme.

Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life. There's not some trick involved with it. It's pure and it's real. It moves, it heals, it communicates and does all these incredible things.

We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.

Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day.

Many of the issues I encountered as acting secretary were not with the quality of medical care but with getting our veterans through the door to reach that care.

As far as hypnosis is concerned, I had a very serious problem when I was in my twenties. I encountered a man who later became the president of the American Society of Medical Hypnosis. He couldn't hypnotize me.

Spanglish is the encounter: perhaps the word is marriage or divorce of English and Spanish, but also of Anglo and Hispanic civilizations - not only in the United States but in the entire continent and, perhaps, also in Spain.

Genuine and true love is so rare that when you encounter it in any form, it's a wonderful thing, to be utterly cherished in whatever form it takes.

The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

Some officials overseeing local water systems have tried to go above and beyond what is legally required. But they have encountered resistance, sometimes from the very residents they are trying to protect, who say that if their water is legal, it must be safe.

I think I'm learning how to release every day. Recognizing that everything you encounter, touch, or love can become part of you, and in essence never disappears, as long as you can recall it to memory or heart. It's all so connected that we lose everything, but also, we never lose anything.