Secretly we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

As a young kid, I really wanted to be rich.

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

Solitude is independence.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

I feel confident imposing change on myself. It’s a lot more fun progressing than looking back. That’s why I need to throw curve balls.

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man’s lack of faith in his true Self.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? 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.

It’s important for me to let my fans know I really don’t care. I’m confident.

I just have a thing in my brain that when I’m about to do something that’s genuine or authentic, I think of it in song form. I’ll be like, ‚Yo, this is a human emotion that no one talks about.‘

It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.

I want people to draw strength from me.

Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.

They’re right to think that about me, because I’m the person most likely to sleep with my female fans, I genuinely love other women. And I think they know that.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

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.

I realized the other day that I’ve lived in New York longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

I let the American people down.

What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

I love being busy.

I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things.

Frustration is a sign I am acting independently. The more you try your own way, the tighter the doors will stay closed.

It’s like, remember who you always were, where you came from, who your parents were, how they raised you. Because that authentic self is going to follow you all through life, so make sure that it’s solid so it’s something that you can hold on and be proud of for the rest of your life.

Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

There are people in the world who have skills and strength and talent that I will never have. Never. These notions that you can ‚be whatever you want to be as long as you want it bad enough‘ are not true. They are fairy tales.

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.

Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.

I can do whatever I want.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

The people in my songs are all me.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made.

I never looked at my mantel and envisioned an MVP trophy sitting there. This is pretty crazy.

Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.

Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.

Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.

I used to worry about every little thing, trying to figure out every problem. Well, I realize now how foolish that was. I was no more in control of my life than the man on the moon.

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

Spiritual people don’t float around all day on clouds of glory; they live in the real world and deal with real issues in real ways.

We all have two lives: an inner life and an outer life. Your inner life is your soul life, which includes your mind, will and emotions. Your outer life is your physical life. And while God cares about every detail of your life, He is more concerned with your inner life than your outer life.

I always say, decisions I make, I live with them. There’s always ways you can correct them or ways you can do them better. At the end of the day, I live with them.

The only really committed artist is he who, without refusing to take part in the combat, at least refuses to join the regular armies and remains a freelance.

If someone you know makes a bad decision or uses bad judgment, it doesn’t mean you have to allow that to alter your attitude. Why should you allow anyone else’s bad decisions to send you into a tailspin of misery?

In a universe that’s an intelligent system with a divine creative force supporting it, there simply can be no accidents. As tough as it is to acknowledge, you had to go through what you went through in order to get to where you are today, and the evidence is that you did.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

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

When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.

We work to become, not to acquire.

When granted many years of life, growing old in age is natural, but growing old with grace is a choice. Growing older with grace is possible for all who will set their hearts and minds on the Giver of grace, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The flesh, or human nature, is generally lazy and self-centered.