What good is it being Marilyn Monroe? Why can’t I just be an ordinary woman?

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It’s because I’m not quite an atheist and it worries me. There’s that little bit that holds on: ‚Well, I’m almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.‘

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‚If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?‘ And whenever the answer has been ‚No‘ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

There is a piece of me that likes to fondly imagine my maverick and rebellious nature. But, more accurately, I like to have a nice and cosy institution that I can rub up against a little bit.

Instead of blaming everyone and everything else for your problems, pray for God to help you take an inventory of what’s been on your mind so you can think about what you’ve been thinking about.

The self is hateful.

In the United States, I am a great success, but I am not a celebrity.

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair.

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

Just as the humble, unassuming, assenting ‚O.K.‘ has deposed the more affirmative ‚Yes,‘ so the little cringe and hesitation and approximation of ‚like‘ are a help to young people who are struggling to negotiate the shoals and rapids of ethnic identity, the street, and general correctness.

I have trouble imagining what I could do that’s beyond the practicality of what I can do.

I hate being called an ‚icon.‘ I just don’t like it. That’s all there is to it.

Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.

The world can criticize me, but l can always criticize it back.

I am never satisfied with myself and that is what keeps me going – I have no post-satisfaction.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.

I try not to think about my life. I have no life. I need therapy.

You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.

Me, as a person, I grow. I’m like a chameleon. You know? That is a gift and a curse for me. But more so a gift, because it never puts me in a box.

We judge people in areas where we’re vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we’re doing.

The best of us must sometimes eat our words.

I realized, ‚Yo, I can’t do anything in moderation. I don’t know how.‘

A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.

To kids, I’ve always been more than just some big tough black guy. I train to be tough – I box and do karate – but underneath all that toughness is a tender man.

Robyn is who I am. Rihanna – that’s an idea of who I am.

Every man is his own hell.

Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.

I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

Honor thy error as a hidden intention.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

My friends, there are no friends.

It’s a very strange thing being recognized or looked upon as someone special.

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn’t a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

Take time to gather up the past so that you will be able to draw from your experience and invest them in the future.

I wish I knew why I am so anguished.

You’re looking at a middle-class guy. I am who I am.

We grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story and the next, and the next.

I think who you are in school really sticks with you. I don’t ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It’s like, ‚Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.‘

No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.

I was an overnight sensation.

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

I don’t think I’m supposed to boss other people around just because I’m a so-called celebrity or star. I hate that when people act that way. No one deserves it. I’ve seen it happen. I don’t call those people out – they know who they are. Some enjoy that reputation.

I don’t call up the press and say, ‚Look at me!‘

I don’t look at myself as a commodity, but I’m sure a lot of people have.

Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome.

I have said this many times, that there seems to be enough room in the world for mediocre men, but not for mediocre women, and we really have to work very, very hard.

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

People make jokes about my bosoms, why don’t they look underneath the breasts at the heart? It’s obvious I’ve got big ones and if people want to assume they’re not mine, then let them.

Whoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises.

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.

It definitely has learning a lesson about the way you’re living your life. I wouldn’t compare our movie to that, but it has a structure where it’s about a man who doesn’t appreciate all that he has and finds out at the end that life has been great and he has to enjoy that.

In England, when an athlete gets to the top, we do our best to destroy him.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

It would be an egregious mistake to ever refer to me in the same breath as most of the people I write about.

I have known people who are working class or craftsmen, who happen to be more intellectual than professors.

Barack Obama did tell me that I was one of Michelle Obama’s favorite actors.

Overnight stardom can be harmful to your mental health. Yeah. It has ruined a lot of people.