Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that’s Memoirs.

I’m an introvert somewhat. There could be a room full of people, I’ll go stand in the corner.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

Most people return small favors, acknowledge medium ones and repay greater ones – with ingratitude.

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event.

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

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.

I’m not looking to exclude people, I’m looking to include them.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

I’m not really book-smart.

When there’s so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you’ve already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?

Me and my dad are friends. We’re cool. I’ll never be disappointed again, because I don’t expect anything anymore from him. I just let him exist, and that’s how we get along.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

Humility is not something that comes naturally. But it is a cardinal virtue that should be pursued more than any other.

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.

A man must now swallow more belief than he can digest.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

Oh, I’ve always been very… Emotional. ‚Hypersensitive‘ is what they call it, I think.

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.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.

It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.

I think the great part about what I do is that there’s a scoreboard. At the end of every week, you know how you did. You know how well you prepared. You know whether you executed your game plan. There’s a tangible score.

Without stirring abroad, One can know the whole world; Without looking out of the window One can see the way of heaven. The further one goes The less one knows.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

I no have education. I have inspiration. If I was educated, I would be a damn fool.

You just want something else that someone else has, but that doesn’t mean what you have isn’t beautiful, because people always want what you have, and you always want what they have – no one is ever 100 per cent like, ‚Yes, I’m the bomb dot com – from head to toe!‘

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

Within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves.

Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

We all have done something unethical.

I’m gonna make what I want to make, and other people are gonna like what they’re gonna like. It doesn’t really matter.

You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you’ve closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.

Things that I felt absolutely sure of but a few years ago, I do not believe now. This thought makes me see more clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with me.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

I can handle pain.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

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.

My mother never cursed at home; my father never cursed at home. My father didn’t drink. Even though we were poor, we would say a blessing over the table. So that’s who I am.

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.

It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead.

I’ve written all my songs on every single one of my records, and that’s what’s been fun about looking back.

Reproach is shame, blame, disgrace, disapproval and a disrespectful attitude toward yourself. When you’re under reproach, your behavior shows it.

In ‚Changeling,‘ I tried to show something you’d never see nowadays – a kid sitting and looking at the radio. Just sitting in front of the radio and listening. Your mind does the rest.