I was never particularly fond of my voice.

I will praise any man that will praise me.

I know that I’m not the easiest person to live with. The challenge I put on myself is so great that the person I live with feels himself challenged. I bring a lot to bear, and I don’t know how not to.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

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.

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.

I’m intimidated by the fear of being average.

A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

The game is changing with songs like ‚Earned It‘ as opposed to it changing me.

One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

I’m very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me. I’m rather surprised at who I am, because I’m actually like my dad!

I understand aggressiveness in only one way: being prepared to hurt yourself, not someone else.

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

What is common sense isn’t common practice.

I’m trying to show everybody that I’m a girl, and I’m five foot four, and you can do anything you want, no matter your gender. It’s your world, too!

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.

I think happiness is a goal all of us can agree on. Let’s face it – we all would like to be happy.

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

I don’t believe in ‚thinking‘ old. Although I’ve transitioned through many bodies – a baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, mid-life and older adult – my spirit is unchanged. I support my body with exercise, my mind with reading and writing, and my spirit with the knowing that I am part of the Divine source of all life.

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it’s government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

What I want for my fans and for the world, for anyone who feels pain, is to lean into that pain and embrace it as much as they can and begin the healing process.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

By indignities men come to dignities.

The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

The self is hateful.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.

Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

Catering to bad feelings feeds and empowers them.

I love money because I’ve earned it. I won sixty G’s with my first knockout – and the week before, I was collecting social welfare.

I always want to listen to people and receive good criticism, but I just don’t have to answer to them; I have to answer to God.

Libraries raised me.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.

I have goals.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

I don’t think a lot of people know personally who I am.

When I get down, I don’t waller around for long.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

I just wanted to write something about running, but I realized that to write about my running is to write about my writing. It’s a parallel thing in me.

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

Stand a little less between me and the sun.

No such thing as a man willing to be honest – that would be like a blind man willing to see.

I grew up as this very carefree, happy kid then things turned darker for me. Maybe it was because I saw that the world wasn’t as happy a place as I had hoped it would be for me.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.

The conscience can be a strong guide in life if we allow it.

The idea of going to school and getting a job is the most destructive one in your brain.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Always do whatever’s next.

Your Highest Self only wants you to be at peace. It does not judge, compare, or demand that you defeat anyone or be better than anyone.

In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.