Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

I’m not intelligent. I’m not arrogant. I’m just like the people who read my books. I used to have a jazz club, and I made the cocktails and I made the sandwiches. I didn’t want to become a writer – it just happened.

My show ‚The Big House‘ was picked up; they flew me to New York. I’m about to step on stage to announce Kevin Hart’s ‚The Big House.‘ And a hand grabs my shoulder, ‚Kevin no, they just decided to cancel it.‘ It’s a serious smack-in-the-face business, and either you can take it, or you can’t.

It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one’s heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.

Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.

Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

Honor thy error as a hidden intention.

I knew ‚Crenshaw‘ had elevated me and distinguished me.

The person we believe ourselves to be will always act in a manner consistent with our self-image.

I stopped doing drugs when I was 20. I was finished with drugs before Nirvana even started.

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.

It’s absolutely normal that different human beings want to go different ways.

Yeah, I wasn’t chosen to be first. I was just chosen to command that flight. Circumstance put me in that particular role. That wasn’t planned by anyone.

Marines don’t know how to spell the word ‚defeat‘.

There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.

I keep working because I learn something new all the time.

Today I love myself as I love my god: who could charge me with a sin today? I know only sins against my god; but who knows my god?

If you get knocked down – setbacks in life, like applying for a job if they don’t hire you – keep trying, keep getting up, keep doing it.

Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not ‚yours,‘ not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.

Man’s unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite.

I would like to fly in space. Absolutely. That would be cool. I used to just do personally risky things, but now I’ve got kids and responsibilities, so I can’t be my own test pilot. That wouldn’t be a good idea. But I definitely want to fly as soon as it’s a sensible thing to do.

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.

If something can corrupt you, you’re corrupted already.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn’t say I lived in a ghetto; I’d say I lived in the ‚hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

I know that I always wanted things. I was always proud of my people, proud of my home, but I always wanted more. I think most people do.

Transformation literally means going beyond your form.

Money does not change people, people change.

Always do whatever’s next.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

I’m an emotional person.

To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.

To live is to find out for yourself what is true, and you can do this only when there is freedom, when there is continuous revolution inwardly, within yourself.

When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.

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

Self-talk, for me, has been the biggest thing in my life. A lot of us have a dialogue that is crap. It’s a crappy dialogue. We live in a world right now that is very external. Everything is very on the surface. Superficial. Everything. And what we’re telling ourselves is what we see on TV.

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

This has always been my life and no one else’s, and that’s how it’s always been since the day I came in it.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Enemies are so stimulating.

Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.

Even when we have physical hardships, we can be very happy.

Feels good to try, but playing a father, I’m getting a little older. I see now that I’m taking it more serious and I do want that lifestyle.

I don’t mind telling a dark side.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others‘ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

If my world were to cave in tomorrow, I would look back on all the pleasures, excitements and worthwhilenesses I have been lucky enough to have had. Not the sadness, not my miscarriages or my father leaving home, but the joy of everything else. It will have been enough.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

It doesn’t matter if the water is cold or warm if you’re going to have to wade through it anyway.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.

We cannot learn men from books.

I feel the emotion that life conjures up and the songs I write get me closer to my feelings and realising who I am. It’s a natural process.

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.

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.