I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.

I write songs about stuff that I can’t really get past personally – and then I write a song about it and I feel better.

I think life is a matter of choices and that wherever we are, good or bad, is because of choices we make.

The people of Northern Ireland have sorted out my whole life.

The fact that you are willing to say, ‚I do not understand, and it is fine,‘ is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.

I get nervous when I don’t get nervous. If I’m nervous I know I’m going to have a good show.

The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.

I’m intimidated by the fear of being average.

It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more.

I’m sure I’ve changed my mind about something. Inevitably, when we grow up – as we get more experience and wiser. Well, I’ve changed my mind about some food that I didn’t like when I was young.

Make bold choices and make mistakes. It’s all those things that add up to the person you become.

How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I’ll say that. Wonder and terror.

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.

Of course, when I say that human nature is gentleness, it is not 100 percent so. Every human being has that nature, but there are many people acting against their nature, being false.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

I used to pray that God would make me a great athlete, and He never did.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

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.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

Everything is an open book. I don’t speak on other people’s hardship, but if it happened in my life or something that has been an experience on my particular journey, I’m going to talk about it. That’s what my fan base appreciates the most. I’m universal. You can relate to the things I say or that I go through.

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

We all have experiences in our lives that change us, and we all learn from people, like my dad, but at the end of the day, it’s only us. And we’re only responsible to make ourselves happy.

God has his plans and his reasons. Sometimes we are supposed to go through things so that we learn lessons.

I am trying to find myself. Sometimes that’s not easy.

First and foremost, we need to be the adults we want our children to be. We should watch our own gossiping and anger. We should model the kindness we want to see.

Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I’ve done it all – I’m good. Now, it’s about setting an example for others to follow. I can’t just talk it – I have to live it.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.

The older I get, the better I understand that every day is a gift.

As much as it might look like, to someone else, that I’m successful, I never feel like I’m anywhere. The further I go, I still feel equally further from my eventual goal. Because as I grow, I get more goals. I’m never content.

I am attracted to people who make this effort in knowing what suits them – they are individual and stylish.

Responsibility is the price of freedom.

We become what we repeatedly do.

I didn’t leave bodybuilding until I felt that I had gone as far as I could go. It will be the same with my film career. When I feel the time is right, I will then consider public service. I feel that the highest honor comes from serving people and your country.

Don’t just let the devil use your mind as a garbage dump.

My father wasn’t around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, ‚Why me? Why don’t I have a father? Why isn’t he around? Why did he leave my mother?‘ But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, ‚I don’t know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?‘

Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I’m past that age.

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

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

I guess I don’t so much mind being old, as I mind being fat and old.

To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.

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.

Words are powerful; if you change your words, you can change your life.

It’s dangerous to read the Internet about yourself when you’re me. Or when you’re anyone in the public eye.

Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one’s own desires through which one listens.

Keeping score is for games, not friendships.

I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny.

Mental toughness is a lifestyle. It’s something that you live every single day of your life. When I was growing up, I was a lazy kid. I was a lazy kid, and everybody goes, ‚How did you get to where you’re at today? How did you get to where you’re running 200 miles at one time in 39 hours? Being so disciplined?‘

I need one of those baby monitors from my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I’m really thinking about.

Eventually you get to this point where you understand what you want to do and get across and sound like.

I always put myself out there. I’m not afraid to commit to something.

Playing in MLS was a great experience. It has boosted my confidence and I feel I have matured as a player.

I’ve done the bad-boy thing. It was fun for a good three months. But the thing about bad boys is, you have to keep in mind, you’re never gonna marry a bad boy.

In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.

People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.