For me praising people feels like hugging them. Maybe that’s why I do it so much. When praising someone I see the good in the person and say what I see. It’s that simple.

When I praise someone’s play a friend might say I’m lying because I didn’t really like the play, but if you look really carefully at what I said it wasn’t a lie. I really do admire the courage it takes to create a work of art, whatever the result.

Sometimes people say I’m full of shit when I praise them because I praise so many people, but my praise is specific to each person and I mean exactly what I say. I’m not full of shit!

I praise my wife so much she can’t stand it. I’ve told her she’s brilliant, beautiful, talented, wise, so hot, the best wife in the world, the best mother in the world, and the best person in the history of the universe. While saying those things I actually mean them.

When my wife asks if I think a movie star is beautiful I’ll say I didn’t even notice the movie star because my wife is so much more beautiful. She accuses me of lying but I really mean it, in terms of my own particular definition of beautiful—that which looks like my wife.

I don’t praise God but over my lifetime I have devoted myself to praising his works. And hugging them.