I’ve always felt that if I examine myself too much, I’ll find out what I know and don’t know, and I’ll burst the bubble. I’ve gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I’d rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

Songs don’t have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I’ve done is about alienation… about where you fit in society.

There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.

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.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Some of the kids in school used to call my father a fake or a phony. That kind of thing brought on a few fights.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

Know your worth! People always act like they’re doing more for you than you’re doing for them.

I’ve never been a jealous person, and I’ve never felt built up by someone else’s failure – that’s a cheap thrill.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

I realized the other day that I’ve lived in New York longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

Do not think of your faults, still less of other’s faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

My weaknesses have always been food and men – in that order.

Sometimes you have to take two steps back to take ten forward.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

I don’t have emotional needs, only physical ones.

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.

I restore myself when I’m alone.

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

I never thought of losing, but now that it‘ s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

My mother did not like children.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.

The more I grow in popularity, the lonelier it gets. Because you don’t really know me. You just know this part of me. You fell in love with that. But it’s way more intricate than what meets the surface.

Vanity is but the surface.

If I went back to my 20-year-old self, what I would tell my 20-year-old self is, ‚You don’t know anything.‘ Because everyone, when they’re young, they think they know what’s going on in the world, and you don’t.

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

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Create a ladder of values and priorities in your life, reminding yourself of what really matters to you.

The way I approach this thing, when I started to get my head screwed on straight and really trying to make something of myself as an artist, when I was 19 or 20, it became more about function for me. Like, what is this song doing to you? What is the function of this type of artform? What is it doing?

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that’s the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread.

If we’re really honest with ourselves, most of us will admit that we want to impress people, and this is what’s causing us to do what we do.

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success.

I do not live on false promises. I cannot afford to live on bad advice.

When I was 8 years old I became a mute and was a mute until I was 13, and I thought of my whole body as an ear, so I can go into a crowd and sit still and absorb all sound. That talent or ability has lasted and served me until today.

I don’t think that much about my relationship with my mother and what it did to me. I sometimes feel terrible regret about her, what her life must have been like. Often, when I’m enjoying something, I think of how meager her rewards were and how much courage, in a way, she needed to go on living.

The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.

If you abandon the present moment, you cannot live the moments of your daily life deeply.

I have the habit of attention to such excess, that my senses get no rest – but suffer from a constant strain.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.

From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That’s what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.

Don’t be afraid to see what you see.

In the child, consciousness rises out of the depths of unconscious psychic life, at first like separate islands, which gradually unite to form a ‚continent,‘ a continuous landmass of consciousness. Progressive mental development means, in effect, extension of consciousness.

Forget the past.

A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Many people feel so pressured by the expectations of others that it causes them to be frustrated, miserable and confused about what they should do. But there is a way to live a simple, joy-filled, peaceful life, and the key is learning how to be led by the Holy Spirit, not the traditions or expectations of man.

If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.

People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way – in such a way that often nobody believes me!