I’m very picky; I’m never happy with anything. It’s so hard to give the record away and accept that you’re done.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

There are a lot of groups that feel a little bit strange around me, because I am inclusive.

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

When it’s your time, it is your time.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

We can’t form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

I know that a large part of my fan base is gay. They’ve shown me love from the start. I mean in this industry, everyone from my glam people to my dancers are gay. You can’t be homophobic in this line of work – I’m a pop star!

To love someone means to see him as God intended him.

You can’t forgive without loving. And I don’t mean sentimentality. I don’t mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, ‚I forgive. I’m finished with it.‘

I’m never going to be fast, and nobody will ever mistake me for being fast.

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

If you are against yourself, you will never reach your highest potential. And when you criticize yourself, you’re criticizing God.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

I was willing to accept what I couldn’t change.

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

I’m a big perfectionist! I’m trying to channel super-confident women like Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey and Beyonce, because I realized that if you want something, you really have to go for it, just like they do.

Custom reconciles us to everything.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

Your timeless self does not age and has no fear of the future. Contemplate your physical self and all its possessions, and practice laughing peacefully at it all.

Most people are happy being average. Most are happy being faceless in a sea of faces.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

The truth is something that burns. It burns off dead wood. And people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent dead wood.

I think what’s important is for us to decipher what is honest and what is dishonest and be accepting of those things and not operating from fear.

Every night on the court I give my all, and if I’m not giving 100 percent, I criticize myself.

I’m not ashamed to say I fear something.

One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.

I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.

There’s an inherent danger in letting people think that they have perfected something. When they believe they’ve ‚nailed it,‘ most people tend to sit back and rest on their laurels while countless others will be labouring furiously to better their work!

Overall there’s going to be things I’m not great at.

I’m like a recovering perfectionist. For me it’s one day at a time.

If there are people you haven’t forgiven, you’re not going to really awaken. You have to let go.

There are some hurts that we experience that can be forgiven but we won’t forget them.

Without forgiveness, there’s no future.

It’s easy to become very self-critical when you’re an actor. Then you get critiqued by the critics. Whether you agree with them or not, people are passing judgment on you.

Forgotten is forgiven.

I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

Let’s embrace being not normal!

I don’t go down the road of condemning.

We are moving towards a world that is reordering itself and that may appear more ordered at some periods of time, but I see no sign that we are moving towards a world order in my definition of it – namely, a system which is accepted, which is internalized by the majority of the key participants.

The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

Other than obvious errors like forgetting a line, often I can’t see any difference between take one and take 20.

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they’re stuck in that safe place.

Don’t say I hate institutionalised religion – rather than saying I hate those things, which I do not, what I’m saying is that perhaps there is a way of opening more doors, rather than closing so many.

Reality has a way of intruding. Reality eventually intrudes on everything.

I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings.

If you’re waiting for the perfect moment, you’ll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There’s nothing foolproof.

I have a strong feeling that I shall be glad when I am dead and done for – scrapped at last to make room for somebody better, cleverer, more perfect than myself.

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?

God just has a way of working things out the way he wants to and you have no say in that.

Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.

Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.

We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious about the future; men of discernment deal only with the present moment.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

Don’t ever criticize yourself. Don’t go around all day long thinking, ‚I’m unattractive, I’m slow, I’m not as smart as my brother.‘ God wasn’t having a bad day when he made you… If you don’t love yourself in the right way, you can’t love your neighbour. You can’t be as good as you are supposed to be.

The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability that he has.