It was a very profound experience, getting in touch with that part of us, in all of us human beings, that is committed beyond yourself to the point of giving everything you have, including your life, for other people, for your fellow man.
What I generally get from being in Africa is a sense of warmth and openness. As a stranger, you are always welcomed into people's homes and people are always offering you food. That generosity is incredibly touching.
The true exercise of freedom is - cannily and wisely and with grace - to move inside what space confines - and not seek to know what lies beyond and cannot be touched or tasted.
For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?
I think there's something quite interesting about the almost tragic quality of a lot of overwrought prose, because it has a much more self-conscious awareness of its own failure to touch the real.
Politicians are terrified of losing touch with folks back home but content to be clueless about government's failure to fix real problems.
After a while, you want to sell a lot of records, win awards and touch as many people as you can, but you have to secure the foundation with your family. I'm a family man, but I'm a businessman, too.
I'm well in touch with my family, my children. I keep them on my answer phone, so if I want to hear one of their voices, all I have to do is punch it up and it will be there.
It was hard saying goodbye to the 'iCarly' family just because we have become such a family, but I do get to see them all the time, and I stay in touch with them.
Email helps me keep in touch with my family. I wouldn't know what my extended family was doing every day if we weren't emailing each other.
Of course, I will continue to share my favorite Southern recipes, just like my mama, grandmother and family shared with me over the years. And now, I'll be adding a little bit of a lighter touch to some of these wonderful dishes.
Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, brain and spinal cord disorders, diabetes, cancer, at least 58 diseases could potentially be cured through stem cell research, diseases that touch every family in America and in the world.
I've always thought of beauty therapy, 'alternative' treatments and the like as the female equivalent of brothels - for essentially self-deceiving people who feel a bit hollow and have to pay to be touched.
After all is said that can be said upon the liquor traffic, its influence is degrading upon the individual, the family, politics and business, and upon everything that you touch in this old world.
As we all know, Cooperstown is the home of baseball. One of the many duties of the home plate umpire is to make sure that the runner touches home. Well, if you're a true baseball fan, you need to visit Cooperstown. This is home.
This sort of encouragement is vital for any writer. And lastly the publication of Touching the Flame, which was on hold for two years and went through a few publishers before finding a stable home.
I love playing video games. I love listening to music. Just surfing the web. Facebook, Twitter, keeping in touch with people from home.
I also hope that I am occasionally involved in projects that touch other people in ways that make their lives a little better, more interesting for the moment that makes them think.
But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.
It's always been my hope that I would write a story that would inspire and would connect with people in a way that would touch hearts.
I hope that, when I leave this planet, I will have touched a few people in a positive way. That's really what I hope I am remembered for the most.
