The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects.

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.

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

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

I have many regrets, and I’m sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret… if you have any sense, and if you don’t regret them, maybe you’re stupid.

There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what’s going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They’re only powerful when you got your back turned.

I’ve been to those places where it’s ‚poor, pitiful me.‘

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

I think I have a dualistic nature.

I can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.

We are rarely proud when we are alone.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.

I know what I believe, I know what I want to do, and I’m just comfortable saying it, and laying it out there.

I do not pilfer victory.

Concentration is my motto – first honesty, then industry, then concentration.

The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.

The problem with me, as far as getting married and having a family, is that my comedy is so important to me. So I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good a dad as my dad.

People can try to reinvent themselves. I don’t think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you’ve done up to now.

I’m not a complete psychopath. Am I partially? Sure. I’ll accept that. But I’m not a complete psychopath.

Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves – and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself.

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.

The single most powerful thing I can be is to be myself.

I always have a full-length mirror next to the camera when I’m doing publicity stills. That way, I know how I look.

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us.

In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

The most deeply personal of my works are the non-fiction works, the autobiographical works, because there, I’m talking about myself very directly.

What do I care about the purring of one who cannot love, like the cat?

Let’s be honest – tracking down, rounding up, and deporting millions of people isn’t realistic. Anyone who suggests otherwise isn’t being straight with you. It’s also not who we are as Americans.

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.

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.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

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.

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

No, I’m not a French designer either. I’m from nowhere. I’m a European, old European is all I am.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can’t expect an angel to look out.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.

Why was I born with such contemporaries?

Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

I’m sure like everyone else I’m not always the happiest if I don’t do a good job in quali or the race or whatever, so I think beating myself up sometimes makes me work harder.

I think I have always had a little humor.

No parent is perfect; we all can look back and think of things we could’ve done to help our children be better prepared for adulthood. And sometimes it’s best to admit it to them and encourage them to learn from our mistakes.

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

The utmost extent of man’s knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

I periodically realize every few years that the only person whose taste I really trust is me.

Most of the time I spend when I get up in the morning is trying to figure out what is going to happen.

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.