It creeps me out sometimes to think of the person I was. I was a terrible person. I was mean to people.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.

Nobody likes to fail. I want to succeed in everything I do, which isn’t much. But the things that I’m really passionate about, if I fail at those, if I’m not successful, what do I have?

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.

Most of us aren’t defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.

I think, when you are growing up, you have to pull apart from what your mother wants or needs. You’ve got to go your own way, and that’s what I did.

My main goal is to be a self-made man and have control over what’s mine.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

The unsuccessful person is burdened by learning, and prefers to walk down familiar paths. Their distaste for learning stunts their growth and limits their influence.

Although I’m only fourteen, I know quite well what I want. I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child. I feel quite independent of anyone.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.

The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path.

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

We should seek the greatest value of our action.

Don’t just let the devil use your mind as a garbage dump.

Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it… Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

You can change your world by changing your words… Remember, death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.

There are some Christian people who taste and see and enjoy religion in their own souls, and who get at a deeper knowledge of it than books can ever give them, though they should search all their days.

I think it’s quite great to set yourself a big challenge, and then you’ve got another reason for keeping fit.

I just feel so much more comfortable and confident every game I play.

When I grow up, I want to be like Balvin.

Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.

I restore myself when I’m alone.

The people in my songs are all me.

We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men’s crapper of the local bar.

Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

Most people have the opportunity of a lifetime flash right in front of them, and they fail to see it. A year later, they find out about it, after everyone else got rich.

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

When I was 50 years old, I actually decided to draw up a list of half a dozen things that I really hadn’t done very well, and I was going to make efforts to improve. One of them was skiing, and I really did become a very much better skier.

My life is not to be somebody else’s impact – you know what I mean?

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.

You don’t have the same mentality as you did five years ago – even one year. People are always changing, and I believe that everyone deserves the space to change and for people to recognize their change.

Practice yourself, for heaven’s sake in little things, and then proceed to greater.

The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.

Nobody knows me.

Be not a slave of words.

People gonna be they own individuals and have they own worlds and I can’t knock it.

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.

Commit yourself to a mighty purpose.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

As a kid, I’d go into the bathroom when I was having a tantrum. I’d be in the bathroom crying, studying myself in the mirror. I was preparing for future roles.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

There’s not some idea I’m going to create a work that’s going to change everybody’s consciousness.

Whatever good things we build end up building us.

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book, If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.