There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

Who shall measure the hat and violence of the poet’s heart when caught and tangled in a woman’s body?

It’s only I have seen enough of it and the funny thing is now, I know that I’m skinny, because I know there are even smaller clothes in the store. I think I’m big, when I was big, I never thought about it.

My confidence is easy to shake. I am very well aware of all of my flaws. I am aware of all the insecurities that I have.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.

Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it. And no one can teach you how to be attentive. If any system teaches you how to be attentive, then you are attentive to the system, and that is not attention.

Overall there’s going to be things I’m not great at.

Whatever talents I possess may suddenly diminish or suddenly increase. I can with ease become an ordinary fool. I may be one now. But it doesn’t do to upset one’s own vanity.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

I’m really trying to dredge up what one might call intellectual and moral material. For example, when do you realize that you are an American? What age does that happen to you? When do you realize what religion your parents practice? When does it all become conscious? I was interested in exploring all of that.

I’m trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It’s so easy to get turned.

In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

Self-talk, for me, has been the biggest thing in my life. A lot of us have a dialogue that is crap. It’s a crappy dialogue. We live in a world right now that is very external. Everything is very on the surface. Superficial. Everything. And what we’re telling ourselves is what we see on TV.

Don’t ever play yourself.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

Few of us have vitality enough to make any of our instincts imperious.

People intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.

I have practically no private life. I’m already used to this and ready for it. Yes, sometimes it is hard, but it is the choice I made.

Before I started school striking I had no energy, no friends and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat alone at home, with an eating disorder. All of that is gone now, since I have found a meaning, in a world that sometimes seems shallow and meaningless to so many people.

When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?

With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.

I’m my own worst critic, and if I don’t pull off what I think I wanted to do in my head, then I won’t be a happy girl.

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

Avoid popularity if you would have peace.

I’m addicted to placebos.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

What you are comes to you.

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

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

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

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

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.

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

If you’re serious, you really understand that it’s important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you’re the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you’re funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?

Find out who you are. And do it on purpose.

There’s love, and certainly children you care about more than yourself. But nevertheless, we’re alone in our heads.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

I look like a casual, laid-back guy, but it’s like a circus in my head.

When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

Money does not change people, people change.

More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.

Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.

I hate to see anybody sink. I hate to see anybody lose their dream, lose their home, something like that.

There are two kinds of people in this world. ‚I‘ people and ‚we‘ people. I’ve always tried to be a ‚we‘ person.