I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.

A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.

If you try and work out at 4:30 in the afternoon, how many people are going to chip away at that time? Your boss, your job, your work, your family, your other obligations that you might have. At 4:30 in the morning, all those people are asleep, so you can do whatever you want.

The question is not, ‚Do you have a problem?‘ The question is, ‚Does the problem have you?‘

We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change you’re the one who has got to change.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.

Observe all men, thyself most.

If we are to be happy, we must first react against our tendency to follow the line of least resistance, a tendency that causes us either to remain as we are, or to look primarily to activities external to ourselves for what will provide new impetus to our lives.

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

I’ve always felt like there was a lot of hype around me even when there wasn’t. I felt like everyone was talking about me even when no one was talking about me.

I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn’t going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I’ve ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn’t want to do whatever he did. So after that, I switched to Communications.

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.

All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.

Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people’s actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.

And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don’t think anyone in my family would really feel I’d done them an injustice by saying that. We didn’t see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.

I learned to fly a few years ago in England. It’s the only place I’m completely alone – up in the air, detached from everything.

I have an existential map. It has ‚You are here‘ written all over it.

No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.

The reason I talk to myself is that I’m the only one whose answers I accept.

Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

I don’t really get nervous that much, or if I do, only I know. It’s all inside me. I am good at hiding everything.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

What comes out when life squeezes you? When someone hurts or offends you? If anger, pain and fear come out of you, it’s because that’s what’s inside.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

Rascals are always sociable, more’s the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others‘ company.

O‘ What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!

Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.

The way I approach this thing, when I started to get my head screwed on straight and really trying to make something of myself as an artist, when I was 19 or 20, it became more about function for me. Like, what is this song doing to you? What is the function of this type of artform? What is it doing?

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

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

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.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.

When I was 11, the whole world was closed to me. I just felt I was on the outside of the world.

When you’re on the road and moving city to city, when someone isn’t there at the end of the night, you feel empty.

I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?

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

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.

I am not very good with relationships. With anyone. I can’t be locked up with anyone for too long.

The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man’s own eyes when they look upon his own person.

Love is an interesting thing. Perhaps I’ve never been in love before – I don’t really know? I think I have. I guess it’s subjective in that way.

When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.

Be pleasant until ten o’clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself.

That nice, soft pillow and the warm blanket, and it’s all comfortable, and no one wants to leave that comfort – but if you can wake up early in the morning, get a head start on everyone else that’s still sleeping, get productive time doing things that you need to do – that’s a huge piece to moving your life forward.

I have retired, but if there’s anything that would kill me it is to wake up in the morning not knowing what to do.

I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

You know, most people really don’t know me.

Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.

Songs don’t have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I’ve done is about alienation… about where you fit in society.

Never get out of bed before noon.

No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that, everyone’s had enough of me to last a month.