The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

For years I wanted to be older, and now I am.

I think that, ah, I’m a very goofy sort of person in many ways.

I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.

Prejudice is a chain, it can hold you. If you prejudice, you can’t move, you keep prejudice for years. Never get nowhere with that.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

The most challenging project I’ve ever done, I think, is every single thing I’ve ever tried to do. It’s never easy.

We all have experiences in our lives that change us, and we all learn from people, like my dad, but at the end of the day, it’s only us. And we’re only responsible to make ourselves happy.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.

You cannot let where you are today cause you to get stuck. I’m going to be my best right now. That’s what faith is all about.

I used to feel unsafe right in the moment of an accomplishment – I felt the ground fall from under my feet because this could be the end. And even now, while everyone is celebrating, I’m on to the next thing. I don’t want to get lost in this big cushion of success.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

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

I am particularly drawn to the form of meditation called Japa. I know it works.

Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

Hollywood is not suited for me, and I am not suited for it.

When I left the University of Notre Dame, I honestly felt I would never coach again.

Start wide, expand further, and never look back.

Feeling sorry for ourselves is the most useless waste of energy on the planet. It does absolutely no good. We can’t let our circumstances or what others do or don’t do control us. We can decide to be happy regardless.

Peace in the world starts with peace in oneself. If everyone lives mindfully, everyone will be more healthy, feel more fulfilled in their daily lives and there will be more peace.

I will not be concerned at other men’s not knowing me; I will be concerned at my own want of ability.

I’ve learned over the years that when I go to that place of passion within me, there’s no force in the universe that can interfere with my completing a project.

It’s an offseason. These days are valuable for everybody.

Get mad, then get over it.

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

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

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

One of the huge imbalances in life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have within yourself of some extraordinarily satisfying way of living.

I’ve always had a problem with the average macho man – they’ve always been a threat to me.

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

My children came out as individuals in their own right. They were not my products. They had their own characters and were very strong-minded. I gave them a lot of freedom when they were still very young. The one thing they got from me is morals. They would never betray anyone. They are really good people.

Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.

I may be no better, but at least I am different.

Many people think of perfectionism as striving to be your best, but it is not about self-improvement; it’s about earning approval and acceptance.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

Breathing in, I am aware of my heart. Breathing out, I smile to my heart and know that my heart still functions normally. I feel grateful for my heart.

I have no time to think about other writers. I am too busy with my own problems.

I don’t have any regrets. I made all my own decisions.

In one way, I suppose, I have been ‚in denial‘ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.

What’s really hard is that you could care a lot for someone and not want to live with him anymore.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

I don’t have to be what you want me to be.

When you learn about the teaching and the practice of another tradition, you always have a chance to understand your own teaching and practice.

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.

We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that’s the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread.

My future is righteousness.

I am in my own head most of the time.

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

I’m not a bad person.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

I am who I am today because of my mother.