My understanding of kindness is that we are hoping to be truly beneficial in every situation, and that this desire means a whole suite of things: being nicer, sure, but also being more aware, more present, more articulate, more fearless, less habituated, etc., etc. And sometimes even being firm, or having an edge, or even being angry.

Sucess is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it... Err in the direction of kindness.

Do all the other things, the ambitious things-travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes...but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.

To me that really would be the essence of kindness, to have one's awareness so developed and refined that you could tell just what was needed, and not do any more or any less, and maybe not even be aware of what you had done, except it would be a helpful thing because of how fully present you were. Well, as Aerosmith once famously said: Dream on.

"Kindness" can mean a lot of different things. In this case, I felt I had to present his [Donald Trump's] supporters in as fair a light as possible - many of them hadn't been interviewed before and that entailed some interviewer-courtesy in the editing and so on.

As a fiction writer, one of things you learn is God lives in specificity. You know, human kindness is increased as we pursue specificity.

It's not fiction's job to be photographically representative of reality. If I want to make a fictional world where there's no kindness, this doesn't mean I believe there's no kindness in the real world. In fact, what it may mean is that I very much value kindness. Like if you make a painting in which only greens are allowed, it wouldn't mean you don't believe in blue.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

Kindness, it turns out, is hard - it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include . . . well, EVERYTHING.

The universal human laws - need, love for the beloved, fear, hunger, periodic exaltation, the kindness that rises up naturally in the absence of hunger/fear/pain - are constant, predictable, reliable, universal, and are merely ornamented with the details of local culture.

As for "toothy kindness" - I think all traditions are full of this sort of tough kindness. If someone is on a wrong or dull path, and someone else startles them into awareness of that, then that's a blessing. And the method by which the startle is obtained might be anger, or satire, or an intentionally applied indifference. But that is, of course, a fine line.

I think kindness is a sort of gateway virtue - having that simple aspiration can get you into deep water very quickly - in a good way.

Life is so hard, how can we be anything but kind?

To begin to meditate is to look into our lives with interest in kindness and discover how to be wakeful and free.

A second quality of mature sirituality is kindness. It is based on a fundamental notion of self-acceptance....

At the end of our life our questions are simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?

When we have for so long been judged by everyone we meet, just to look into the eyes of another who does not judge us can be extraordinarily healing.

The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit.

It is our commitment to wholeness that matters, the willingness to unfold in every deep aspect of our being.

Only a deep attention to the whole of our life can bring us the capacity to love well and live freely.

The best of modern therapy is much like a process of shared meditation, where therapist and client sit together, learning to pay close attention to those aspects and dimensions of the self that the client may be unable to touch on his or her own.

As long as you are trying to be something other than what you actually are, your mind wears itself out. But if you say, 'This is what I am, it is a fact that I am going to investigate and understand,' then you can go beyond.

Most people discover that when hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain.