I didn’t try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

I lived a sloppy life. So I took very small increments in my life. I started making my bed. I started cleaning my room. There were dishes in the sink. It started off with doing small house chores. I saw that the yard needed to be mowed. So instead of being told it needed to be mowed, I would mow it.

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.

I know a lot of artists say this, but it’s hard to put myself in a box. I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming form a special place. There’s no tricks.

Little things affect little minds.

When I was growing up, I wasn’t an extrovert. If anything, I was an introverted kid and a very average pupil at school. I was very quiet.

I had nothing growing up, but I always wanted to be ‚sexy,‘ even before I knew what the word was.

When we see persons of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see persons of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

Enemies are so stimulating.

I don’t like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can’t do it.

I do say things that I think will shock people. But I don’t do things to shock people. I’m not trying to be the next Tupac, but I don’t know how long I’m going to be on this planet. So while I’m here, I might as well make the most of it.

I was ironing my own clothes when I was 11 years old. My mental strength goes back to those days.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

Military school was great and especially great for leadership and then I spent two years in Vietnam.

Everybody has a purpose.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

A career is born in public – talent in privacy.

I have always been that girl in the back who doesn’t say anything.

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

I couldn’t ever go back home without being something. I probably would never have gone back home. That was definitely a big motivation. To get back home, and not empty-handed.

I’ve been careful in love. I’ve been careless in love. And I’ve had adventures I wouldn’t trade for anything.

There’s just some magic in truth and honesty and openness.

I am a walking piece of art every day, with my dreams and my ambitions forward at all times in an effort to inspire my fans to lead their life in that way.

I’m not looking to freak people out – eating rodents or bugs. I don’t do that anymore.

Yeah, I’m an open book.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

I’m not really good at fun-to-know, human interest stuff. We’re not ‚celebrities‘, whose life itself is a performance. Good or bad or ugly, we are our words. They’re what people meet.

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‚Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.‘

I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

I am a big believer in education, because when I grew up in Austria – when I grew up in Austria I had a great education. I had great teachers.

The single most powerful thing I can be is to be myself.

When I was married, I definitely went through a lying period.

I don’t have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I’m happier now than before I developed the condition.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

Pick the day. Enjoy it – to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come… The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present – and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future.

I grew up as this very carefree, happy kid then things turned darker for me. Maybe it was because I saw that the world wasn’t as happy a place as I had hoped it would be for me.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.

I don’t want to be too critical of what other people do, but when people go back to do the same thing that they did, I’m completely confused. I’m like, ‚Didn’t you make that movie already?‘ I’ve been very fortunate, and I’m well taken care of, so the least I can do is try to go forward.

I don’t do things for the response or for the controversy. I just live my life.

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.

I enjoy wearing pins, and nobody tells me to do it.

I think, for years, people have been pushed down by religion, and I don’t say that disrespectfully, but they’ve been shown a God that you can’t measure up to.

A song is anything that can walk by itself.

I always have been an activist for things that were just authentically a part of my life, that I felt connected to.

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.

When I arrived, at first a lot of people were like, ‚This kid is different.‘

The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

I believe that having a spiritual life is so important in everybody’s life.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

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

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

If you have fear, you are bound by tradition, you follow some leader or guru. When you are bound by tradition, when you are afraid of your husband or your wife, you lose your dignity as an individual human being.

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.

I don’t need you to be funny. I don’t want to be entertained.

Those outside the church expect followers of Christ to live differently, yet today many in church are chasing after the world – not to win them, but to be like them.

Get mad, then get over it.