I hate to be smart.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don’t regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

My family, frankly, they weren’t folks who went to church every week. My mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew but she didn’t raise me in the church, so I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead.

Invest three percent of your income in yourself (self-development) in order to guarantee your future.

I grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.

I had to come from something, come from a place that was negative and positive but the majority of it is a negative place.

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.

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

At one time, I was very angry. I even treated fashion like a kind of crusade: you were either with us or against us, that kind of feeling. Now I know we need ideas, not kicking down a door.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

The problem with me, as far as getting married and having a family, is that my comedy is so important to me. So I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good a dad as my dad.

Believe it or not, I make myself laugh. Sometimes when I have thoughts or say some things that are funny, it just makes me laugh, and I don’t mind laughing at it before you guys do.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

Where much is expected from an individual, he may rise to the level of events and make the dream come true.

I was training to be an electrician. I suppose I got wired the wrong way round somewhere along the line.

To me, a leader is someone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. And so what I think is really important is sustainability.

I resigned from the Marine Corps and flying in 1974, even though I loved them both. I quit because I no longer wanted to fight for peace. Instead, I believe we can build a more sustainable peace by working for prosperity.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.

One of the triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement is that when you travel through the South today, you do not feel overwhelmed by a residue of grievance and hate.

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

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

There are phases in life which surface at times, and it makes you understand that despite you working hard, everything what you are doing is probably not enough. That’s when you need to look around, and beyond.

It’s sometimes comical to hear the younger generation ask their peers to repeat themselves.

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

I let the American people down.

You can have the platinum album. But, you know, when you still feel like you haven’t quite found your place in the world, it kind of gives a crazy offset.

As I got older, I guess I became more mellow and more forgiving and more loving.

Failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.

Canada is a balloon-puncturing country. You are not really allowed to be an icon unless you also make an idiot of yourself.

When I was a kid, I never did funny things to get attention. I was never a funny person. I was never, like, ‚Oh, wow. I could say this some day on stage.‘

It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

It was weird to be married; you kind of lose your identity. You’re suddenly somebody’s wife. And you’re like, ‚Oh, I’m half of a couple now. I’ve lost me.‘

The other day I… uh, no, that wasn’t me.

People always say when they meet me that I’m not what they expect. I assume they think I’m this super dark and depressing guy, but I like to channel all of those emotions into my work.

A lot of times, you could play me just the laughs from my set, and I could tell you, from the laugh, what the joke was. Because they match.

I am happy and I’m single.

It’s an offseason. These days are valuable for everybody.

Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.

I want to work; then, as my kids get older, I want to have adventures. I want to visit all their countries: learn and live inside all their cultures.

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

The thing that I fear discriminating against is humor and truth.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

Acting helped me as I was growing up. It helped me learn about myself, helped me travel, helped me understand life, express myself, all those wonderful things. So I’m very, very grateful; it’s a fun job. It’s a luxury.

I love money because I’ve earned it. I won sixty G’s with my first knockout – and the week before, I was collecting social welfare.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

I don’t have emotional needs, only physical ones.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

I think so many people live their whole life in fear and doubt and shame.

I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.

Whenever you’re going through a tough time, generally, you become more compassionate, you become softer, you become more thoughtful, kinder. These are all spiritual qualities that will help you to align yourself with God and God consciousness rather than with a split fear-based consciousness.

When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.

Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.

I’m so old, I don’t buy green bananas any more.