One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.

If you don’t know your full-throttle history, the whole story of how you came to where you are, it’s kind of hard to put things together.

I was ironing my own clothes when I was 11 years old. My mental strength goes back to those days.

I was not a good student. I did not spend much time at college; I was too busy enjoying myself.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.

Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.

Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.

All things are only transitory.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul.

If I’ve got something do. I’m going to attack it. I’m going to attack that stress.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.

The experience of pain or loss can be a formidably motivating force.

Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

Don’t be humble… you’re not that great.

It didn’t even occur to me that I’m the last person in the world who should play salsa or Brazilian music.

I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

I thank God I’m in a position where I can pick and choose – there are some roles I don’t play.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you’ll make one.

If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.

If you try to protect yourself from pain, it becomes a stone in your heart. But the more you learn to face things, the more likely that stone can become a pearl.

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

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!

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

We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to turn us. We can become consumed by hate and darkness, or we’re able to regain our humanity somehow, or come to terms with things and learn something about ourselves.

I like to make people feel happy and superior in their reaction towards my appearance.

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.

Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

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 feel that I’ve done what I wanted to do, and that makes me feel fairly content.

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.

To become ‚unique,‘ the challenge is to fight the hardest battle which anyone can imagine until you reach your destination.

I had nothing growing up, but I always wanted to be ‚sexy,‘ even before I knew what the word was.

Thoughts are mental energy; they’re the currency that you have to attract what you desire. Learn to stop spending that currency on thoughts you don’t want.

God made you a masterpiece – be blessed, secure, disciplined and equipped.

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it.

My work is the only ground I’ve ever had to stand on. To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation, but I’m working on the foundation.

America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn’t standing still.

I don’t think I’m an unlucky person.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy.

I have a terrifying long list of fears. Literally everything – diseases, spiders… and people getting tired of me.

The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things.

I’m a spokesman for myself. It just so happens that there’s a bunch of people that are concerned with what I have to say. I find that frightening at times because I’m just as confused as most people. I don’t have the answers for anything.

‚Worry‘ is a word that I don’t allow myself to use.

I’ve always felt quite singular, even as a child. That I must stay on track to keep my purpose.

Conversion is a change of masters. Will we not do as much for our new master, the Lord Jesus, as we did once for our old tyrant lusts?

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.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.