However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

Everybody has a purpose.

The first step in a person’s salvation is knowledge of their sin.

Enjoyment is an incredible energizer to the human spirit.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

I don’t want to make money; I want to make a difference.

I owe my solitude to other people.

I keep working because I learn something new all the time.

God has his plans and his reasons. Sometimes we are supposed to go through things so that we learn lessons.

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

I don’t know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

We cannot live being obsessed with what other people think about us. It’s impossible to live like that. Not even God managed to please the entire world.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

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.

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.

The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

Learn to think continentally.

A lot of dreams can turn to nightmares… if you don’t really work them.

Everything I read about hitting a midlife crisis was true. I had such a struggle letting go of youthful things and learning how to exist and have enthusiasm while settling into the comfort of an older age.

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet, than to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.

I’ve done some analysis of the biblical stories as part of my psychological work. I knew that I had more to do, and every time I’ve done it, it’s been extremely valuable. It makes me a better teacher because I have a richer understanding of cultural history.

If they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.

People have so many hang-ups about how other people live their lives. People always want to keep you in a little box, or they need to label you and fix you in time and location.

To do your best is no longer good enough. We now have to do the seemingly impossible.

I’m perpetually lonely.

If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‚I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,‘ and I actually meant it.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

You simply have to accept that your demons are a part of you.

I’m totally myself.

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

Become aware of your own insufficiency.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.

Yeah, I was a delinquent. It was when I was in the ninth grade. I was doing stupid stuff, and the cops came into the class. I was humiliated more than anything.

I need more sex, OK? Before I die I wanna taste everyone in the world.

I love getting out of my comfort zone.

Remind yourself that the greatest technique for bringing peace into your life is to always choose being kind when you have a choice between being right or being kind.

Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.

It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.

The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity… The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

Thank God, I never was cheerful. I come from the happy stock of the Mathers, who, as you remember, passed sweet mornings reflecting on the goodness of God and the damnation of infants.

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.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

He who is contented is rich.

Needing to have things perfect is the surest way to immobilize yourself with frustration.

Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.

I’ve never been pregnant, so I just feel God didn’t mean for me to have kids so that everybody else’s children could be mine.

I myself would like to become more disciplined within my work.

Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.

There’s not some idea I’m going to create a work that’s going to change everybody’s consciousness.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

First and foremost comes my family and my life with Brad. We have so much joy in raising our children and teaching them about the world that nothing really compares to that.

No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.