I don't yell at people, I don't mistreat people. I don't talk down to people, so no one else in this building, in this vicinity, has the right to do it.
Everything that has ever happened to you has happened for you. Not one thing that has happened is wasted... You were building strength and strength x strength = POWER.
I set out to really build this universe of interfaith connectedness, where people could see that other people in different parts of the world are very much like them.
Can I just tell you the truth? I get asked to do a lot of stuff. And all of the years that people have asked me to do things for the film festival, I couldn't. And so this year, I thought, "Oh, my god, I don't have a day job. If somebody ask me to do something, I'm going to do it."
This whole celebrity-fame thing is interesting. I'm the same person I always was. The only difference between being famous and not being famous is that people know who you are.
I don't know what kind of egomaniac is sitting at home thinking about the impact they have had on the culture. It's not something I actually think about until it comes up.
Books showed me there were possibilities in life, that there were actually people like me living in a world I could not only aspire to but attain. Reading gave me hope. For me, it was the open door.
You want to make decisions that are meaningful to you, and that are going to continue to enhance you being who you really are and what your message to the world is, and everybody has one. The real important thing is to know what that message is and how you want to carry that forward.
If all this happened to you what paradigm might you develop? How might that paradigm affect you in terms of your life from that point on? What does this tell you about Abe? There are no failures, only lessons to be learned.
I would say my faith has become strengthened every time I have faced what I considered to be a trial, and there is no greater trial than being 14 and pregnant and not even knowing what it is.