It’s still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinion of others.

Mental toughness is a lifestyle. It’s something that you live every single day of your life. When I was growing up, I was a lazy kid. I was a lazy kid, and everybody goes, ‚How did you get to where you’re at today? How did you get to where you’re running 200 miles at one time in 39 hours? Being so disciplined?‘

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

I was raised to be independent.

Sometimes if you got a problem deep rooted in your life, it takes a little bit of time to overcome it in that area.

A career is born in public – talent in privacy.

My goal is to entertain myself and others.

Those movies sure got me into a rut.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

When I came into this industry, I was never afraid to be myself.

Your entire life only happens in this moment. The present moment is life itself. Yet, people live as if the opposite were true and treat the present moment as a stepping stone to the next moment – a means to an end.

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

I walk tall; I got a tall attitude.

Responsibility, I believe, accrues through privilege.

We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that’s the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread.

The Bible tells us to be perfect. This is likely a scary thought for many people. It used to scare me. I didn’t think I could ever get there, no matter how hard I tried.

I don’t know, I feel desperate when I sing. And I look desperate – it feels like I’m singing for my life, which makes me twitch, if that makes sense.

My life is mine to remember.

My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.

I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside.

So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.

I understand aggressiveness in only one way: being prepared to hurt yourself, not someone else.

People are underestimating the force of angry kids.

I think I have the nicest fans in the world, and I quite like being surrounded by people if we’re all feeling the same emotion in the same room.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

I’m drawn to bad romances.

If a person doesn’t change, there’s something really wrong with him.

What is a fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself – for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.

Catering to bad feelings feeds and empowers them.

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don’t know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.

My freshman and sophomore years in high school, I spent a lot of time trying to get back on the right track. I was arrested multiple times by the time I was 16, so I had a little harder time trying to adjust like a lot of us do in high school.

Only the insecure strive for security.

When I look back on what I did for the Left, I’m in a small way quite proud of some of it – I only wish I’d done more.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around. I’ll probably be writing when the Lord says, ‚Maya, Maya Angelou, it’s time.‘

I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me.

I’m crazy, but I’m not too crazy.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

In order to heal others, we first need to heal ourselves. And to heal ourselves, we need to know how to deal with ourselves.

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

This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

I was born with a great gift, and sometimes with that comes a destructive streak.

I think love is one of the purest things you can sing about. One of the best things you can sing about.

Create a ladder of values and priorities in your life, reminding yourself of what really matters to you.

Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.

You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.

People hate as they love, unreasonably.

People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.

I am rather inclined to silence.

I’ve always written. There’s a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother’s papers were destroyed. I’d written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then.

I am absolutely my own biggest critic.

If your inner life is not producing what you would like on the outside, don’t be discouraged… just be willing to change.