There are a lot of things I never did, because I believe in watching those true Hollywood stories and I see how easy it is to lose track of your life.

Autobiographies are only useful as the lives you read about and analyze may suggest to you something that you may find useful in your own journey through life.

I try to not focus on what people expect from me.

I was not an anthropology student prior to the war. I took it up as part of a personal readjustment following some bewildering experiences as an infantryman and later as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany. The science of the Study of Man has been extremely satisfactory from that personal standpoint.

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

I am who I am and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record.

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.

Control your own destiny! Control your own destiny!

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

Joanne‘ is a progression for me. It was about going into the studio and forgetting that I was famous.

I’ve always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn’t bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn’t have any brains. I didn’t know what I was doing there. That’s why I became an actor.

I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not. I’m really confused now.

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.

I use a stream-of-consciousness approach; if you don’t censor yourself, you end up with what you’re most concerned about, but you haven’t filtered it through your conscious mind. Then you craft it.

The drama and the trauma of the relationship you have when you’re 16 can mirror the one you have when you’re 26. Life repeats itself.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.

People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.

I began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when I didn’t write. I started again at 16 and have no idea why, but it was suddenly the only thing I wanted to do.

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn’t.

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.

I never fall in love.

When you play sports like tennis, you’re alone, and that’s a good school for life, but it’s also a good school for life to bring your best and make those around you better, too – helping others in difficult moments.

I’m not a natural joiner.

I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

No memory of having starred atones for later disregard, or keeps the end from being hard.

The essential lesson I’ve learned in life is to just be yourself. Treasure the magnificent being that you are and recognize first and foremost you’re not here as a human being only. You’re a spiritual being having a human experience.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

Sometimes you need faith and victory spoken over your life. Words have created power. When you receive them into your spirit, they can ignite seeds of increase on the inside.

Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.

I am a little too absorbed by science to be able to philosophise much; but the more I look into myself, the more I find myself possessed by the conviction that it is only the science of Christ running through all things, that is to say true mystical science, that really matters. I let myself get caught up in the game when I geologise.

You gotta keep trying to find your niche and trying to fit into whatever slot that’s left for you or to make one of your own.

I am a child but I have to think and act like a woman, this business forces you to.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

I am God’s vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.

People always say when they meet me that I’m not what they expect. I assume they think I’m this super dark and depressing guy, but I like to channel all of those emotions into my work.

There are a lot of people who don’t know me and what I am all about.

Never marry someone in hope that they’ll change later.

People will try to bring you down, but you gotta go up.

The Public is merely a multiplied ‚me.‘

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.

In my divorce, I stood up and said to my ex-wife, ‚Hey, I messed up. This had nothing to do with you. I didn’t understand what marriage was. I cheated. I was wrong. We couldn’t fix it; it got worse. I stepped away because I didn’t want it to get any worse. You’re the mother of my kids – I don’t want to hate you.‘

The happiest part of a man’s life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

It’s still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can’t find.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.

What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.

A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.

Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.

I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.

We cannot live being obsessed with what other people think about us. It’s impossible to live like that. Not even God managed to please the entire world.