Quotes from Anderson Cooper

The farther you go, however, the harder it is to return. The world has many edges, and it's easy to fall off.

Each child's story is worthy of telling. There shouldn't be a sliding scale of death. The weight of it is crushing.

Hope is not a plan

The tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible.

Be honest about what you see, get out of the way and let the story reveal itself

Politics was his passion, but he wasn't suited for the rough-and-tumble of the game. He felt things too deeply. There was no wall between his head and his heart.

In a perfect world, I don't think it [one's sexual orientation] is anyone else's business, but I do think there is value in standing up and being counted.

The rainbow comes and goes. Enjoy it while it lasts. Don't be surprised by its departure, and rejoice when it returns.

I'd wanted emotion but couldn't find it here, so I settled for motion.

I don't like anything that scares me, and I prefer to face it head on and get over it. Anyone who says they're not scared is a fool, a liar or both. I just don't want that fear in my stomach to be part of my life, so I work to eliminate it.

You may not be able to see the battle others are fighting, and you may believe they are confident and have never known sadness or fear, but believe me, they have, so be kind. Take

The map of the world is always changing; sometimes it happens overnight. All it takes is the blink of an eye, the squeeze of a trigger, a sudden gust of wind. Wake up and your life is perched on a precipice; fall asleep, it swallows you whole.

You recently read me a quote by Faulkner: "The past isn't dead, it's not even past." So much of our adult lives is influenced by what happened to us as children. It is all still there, the memories, the feelings, and fears, stored just beneath the surface in the hidden crannies of our cortex.

I love you in ways that are infinite and as in eternity have no beginning or end.

The more I saw, however, the more I needed to see. I tried to settle down back home in Los Angeles, but I missed that feeling, that rush. I went to see a doctor about it. He told me I should slow down for a while, take a break. I just nodded and left, booked a flight out that day. It didn't seem possible to stop.

No one seemed to understand. I'd go to movies, see friends, but after a couple days I'd catch myself reading plane schedules, looking for something, someplace to go: a bomb in Afghanistan, a flood in Haiti. I'd become a predator, endlessly gliding in saltwater seas, searching for the scent of blood.

Trying to please everyone all the time never works. It leads to hating oneself and then hating oneself even more when one later tries to assert one's authority. Today

They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing

From the time we were little, you treated us as if our ideas mattered. You and Daddy encouraged us to form our own opinions, and listened when we expressed them. We were not just children in your eyes; we were people who deserved respect. That was a powerful lesson.

We ike to think we are our own people, but sometimes it seems we are just playing out a script that was imprinted in us along ago.

Stop this dwelling on fantasy tragedies and disasters occurring unexpectedly. It is time wasted and leads to a dead end, such pursuits sap and waste energy. You tend to worry much too much over bad things occurring, events that may never happen. You can do this if you put your mind to it. Whenever those thoughts pop up, just give them a swift kick in the ass.

Let it be my motto, as well as yours. Ever upward, as a new life, a new day begins. Have faith that something unexpected and wonderful is moving toward you at incredible speed-EXCELSIOR! Yes, ever upward we must go, and go together.

In 1920, shortly before he died, he was quoted in the New York Times saying, "My life was never destined to be quite happy. . . . Inherited wealth is a real handicap to happiness. It is as certain a death to ambition as cocaine is to morality.

He was forceful, domineering, and supremely sure of himself. When you have low self-esteem, as I did, those qualities are attractive.