When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were.

These things bring you to reality as to how fragile you are; at the same moment you are doing something that nobody else is able to do. The same moment that you are seen as the best, the fastest and somebody that cannot be touched, you are enormously fragile.

Their mothers had finally caught up to them and been proven right. There were consequences after all but they were the consequences to things you didn’t even know you’d done.

I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

The wild Indian power of escaping observation, even where there is little or no cover to hide in, was probably slowly acquired in hard hunting and fighting lessons while trying to approach game, take enemies by surprise, or get safely away when compelled to retreat.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

My family has never been there for me. They expect things because we’re blood.

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.

As I’m traveling around, I meet many small children. And when I look at a small and think how we’ve harmed this beautiful planet since I was that age, I feel a kind of desperation, anger, shame. I don’t know what I feel; I just don’t know what the emotion is.

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.

Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

When I put out ‚Video Games‘ in May 2011, it was a 5:25-minute love song; I was surprised when a lot of people said they were listening to it. I was surprised when it went to the radio, without me even knowing how something like that even happens!

As a father, I always want my son to be perfect. When he was young, I tried to train him in martial arts, but he said, ‚I don’t want to become like Bruce Lee’s son, with everybody telling me how good my father was.‘ I just think my son is too lazy.

Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

I’ve never bought into any sort of hard and fast, this-box/that-box characterization. People are individuals. Yes, they may be expected to be a particular way. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to be that way.

When you come to see a picture of mine, I want you to know that I’m not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. I want you to know that you won’t be disappointed in me.

He hoped and prayed that there wasn’t an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn’t an afterlife.

I had not expected ‚A Brief History of Time‘ to be a best seller.

Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.

At the core, one of my original goals is to redefine what the streets expect.

For me, the world that I inhabit in reality is probably a very different world than the one people expect that I would be in.

When I came to Delhi and noticed an insider view, I felt what it was, and I was surprised to see it. It seemed as if dozens of separate governments are running at the same time in one main government. It appeared that everyone has its own fiefdom.

The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell on them is broken. More: You have ceded them power.

Within the soul of America is freedom of mind and spirit in man. Here alone are the open windows through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit. Here alone is human dignity not a dream but an accomplishment. Perhaps it is not perfect, but it is more full in realization here than any other place in the world.

I don’t like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I’d like to see somebody who’s going in the office. In fact, I’d like to not see them because that way you’d be sure that they’d be working.

I try to do something the audience might not have seen before. Like if I’m gonna kiss a girl I wanna kiss her like a girl has never been kissed. Like maybe I would kick her legs out from under her and catch her right before she hits the ground and then kiss her.

People tend to play in their comfort zone, so the best things are achieved in a state of surprise, actually.

I am completely fascinated by the differences and comparisons between real life and fairy tales because we’re raised as little girls to think that we’re a princess and that Prince Charming is going to sweep us off our feet.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

The more you stay in this kind of job, the more you realize that a public figure, a major public figure, is a lonely man.

Time discovers truth.

When I first saw a picture of the crucifixion, I lost respect for my parents. I suddenly realised that this is what the adult world is like – full of cruelty and hypocrisy.

Put a love note in his shaving kit before he leaves on a business trip.

This desk of mine is one at which a man may die, but from which he cannot resign.

God cannot be realized through the intellect. Intellect can lead one to a certain extent and no further. It is a matter of faith and experience derived from that faith.

Reality has a way of intruding. Reality eventually intrudes on everything.

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

I have a nice office. I have a nice house… So I’m not denying myself some great things. I just don’t happen to have expensive hobbies.

What we need to understand is that when traditions become laws, rules, obligations and expectations others put on us that we don’t want to fulfill, then they lose real meaning and steal the joy from our lives. And if we’re too religious, we won’t be able to be led by the Holy Spirit and enjoy an intimate relationship with Him.

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.

Our lifelong certainties about the world can be demolished in a single second.

Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same of us.

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

I’ve been getting some bad publicity – but you got to expect that.

‚Bellyache‘ is totally fictional. I like writing about things that aren’t real. The song is about not trusting anyone and then putting trust in yourself and realizing that you don’t know what you are doing, either. Or realizing that things you do with a group of people that you think are cool in the moment are ultimately all on you.

Yesterday’s just a memory, tomorrow is never what it’s supposed to be.

In a lot of ways, success is much harder than I thought it would be. I figured that you’d get here and then everything would be happily ever after. But, it’s hard work, almost harder once you’re successful because you’ve got to maintain it.

When you’re young, you look at television and think, there’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want.

Some people have a difficult time facing truth and reality. They prefer to live in a make-believe world, pretending that certain things aren’t happening.

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

When you’re a pop star, it’s a little conservative; you always have to stay in a box. You have fans that are five and fans that are 65; there are so many people wanting so many things.

The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.

There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.