I am absolutely my own biggest critic.

I put Catholic guilt to work pretty good for a rich rock star.

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.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy. My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

I’m tender on the inside.

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

Many people feel so pressured by the expectations of others that it causes them to be frustrated, miserable and confused about what they should do. But there is a way to live a simple, joy-filled, peaceful life, and the key is learning how to be led by the Holy Spirit, not the traditions or expectations of man.

I need one of those baby monitors from my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I’m really thinking about.

By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

I don’t want followers.

I’ve been reckless, but I’m not a rebel without a cause.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

I’d like to believe that the people that have supported me in my work or identified with me in films, the people that feel they know me, they do and they don’t have misconceptions – they understand. I believe that.

If you want to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic.

Read a record number of books in a given month. If you’re focused on intellectual growth, train yourself to study harder and longer than ever before.

Even when you’re 50, you can make the effort to improve your standards.

It’s not an easy course. It’s not designed to be. We’re not here to get you in touch with your inner child.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

My father wasn’t perfect. He had a temper. I took some of that. He would snap, but the older he got, he started calming down. He learned about life, but the thing that he taught my whole family was that family was the most important thing and, no matter what, if a family member needs you, you go and help them out; you get there.

The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.

Don’t feel sorry for me.

In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love.

I hated to be treated as a child. I thought it was the worst situation.

It’s very hard to find your own words – and you don’t actually exist until you have your own words.

I want people to draw strength from me.

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

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

For a person who grew up in the ’30s and ’40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, ‚Here I am, read me.‘ Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person.

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.

I’m afraid to fail again.

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.

The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

I don’t want to be something that just comes and goes.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

I’m getting a wrinkle above my eyebrow because I just can’t stop lifting it, and I love that you know.

In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.

I restore myself when I’m alone.

It is always your next move.

We are all at times unconscious prophets.

I don’t think a lot of people know personally who I am.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

Breathing in, I am aware of my heart. Breathing out, I smile to my heart and know that my heart still functions normally. I feel grateful for my heart.

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

I didn’t know how to deal with success. If there was a Rock Star 101, I would have liked to take it. It might have helped me.

There’s a victory, and defeat; the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.

It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

Doubt in my tradition is something that is very helpful. Because of doubt, you can thirst more and you will get a higher kind of proof.