Alan Alda

It isn’t necessary to be rich and famous to be happy, it’s only necessary to be rich.

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing, but what you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.

A lot of people always question, ‘What else can she do, what else can she do?’ And I’m going to show you

At the end of the day, whether or not those people are comfortable with how you’re living your life doesn’t matter. What matters is whether you’re comfortable with it.

There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves.

What’s to be ashamed of? I went through a really rough time, and I am quite proud that I got out of that.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what’s more than enough.

Man is what he believes.

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong.

If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

One day I will kiss you, kiss you with lips that understand, kiss you with lips that can better explain, that can speak in so many languages. They will know how to say I love you in ways you have never heard, in ways that sound unlike anything any other man has mouthed before, false promises and fairy tales they did not ever believe in. One day I will kiss you, pressed words between your lips. I will kiss you and they will rattle between your teeth, run down your throat, and fill your lungs. They will echo against your ribs, they will reverberate through your limbs, they will dress every corner you’ve kept sadness hidden away until all that grows inside of you is the understanding that you are enough. One day I will tell you all about my paper napkin theories, algorithms I formed that demonstrate how the sum of all that you are, is greater than infinity, but to me you have always been the one.

The difference between you and the person you envy, is that you settle for less.