I’ve had a few semi-toxic relationships, but it’s not what I look for when I’m seeing someone.

Money does not change people, people change.

The highest result of education is tolerance.

I have no time to think about other writers. I am too busy with my own problems.

Being a full human being is difficult, frightening, and problematical.

Reactive people… are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

To me, my house is always recreating what I lost in youth.

In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

I think there are a number of things that you can do to encourage your kids‘ dreams, but I do believe in speaking by experience of having a lot of help along the way, stumbling in the past. We’ve all stumbled, and we certainly all deserve to get up and walk again.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

Prayer doesn’t just change things – it changes us. If we are diligent in seeking God, slowly and surely we become better people.

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

I more fear what is within me than what comes from without.

I began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when I didn’t write. I started again at 16 and have no idea why, but it was suddenly the only thing I wanted to do.

The only shame is to have none.

Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.

I walk tall; I got a tall attitude.

I can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.

I like criticism. It makes you strong.

I think, for years, people have been pushed down by religion, and I don’t say that disrespectfully, but they’ve been shown a God that you can’t measure up to.

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

I wouldn’t say that I am one of the greatest dancers, but I am really quite good at what I do.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.

Every human being is under construction from conception to death.

Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the ‚leaders‘ must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it. And no one can teach you how to be attentive. If any system teaches you how to be attentive, then you are attentive to the system, and that is not attention.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that’s all. So we direct our values to material things.

I let people fill in the blanks on their own. If they want to think about their ex, that’s fine. If they want to think about maybe who one of my exes is, then that’s fine. And it might not be right, because I’m the only one who knows what these songs are really about. It’s the one shred of privacy I have in the matter.

I’m sure I’ve changed my mind about something. Inevitably, when we grow up – as we get more experience and wiser. Well, I’ve changed my mind about some food that I didn’t like when I was young.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.

I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll be a great actress.

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.

Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.

You’re not going to scare me into being somebody I don’t want to be.

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

Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.

The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.

The best part about being in your thirties is you know what works for you.

What nourishes me also destroys me.

I’d like to believe that the people that have supported me in my work or identified with me in films, the people that feel they know me, they do and they don’t have misconceptions – they understand. I believe that.

Relationships are the hallmark of the mature person.

The older I get, the better I understand that every day is a gift.

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

It’s a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

It’s true my father abused me and didn’t love and protect me the way he should have, and at times it seemed no one would ever help me and it would never end. But God always had a plan for my life, and He has redeemed me.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

Some people carry their heart in their head and some carry their head in their heart. The trick is to keep them apart yet working together.

Sure, I can get a little bit jealous. The good part about jealousy is that it comes from passion. It’s also the dangerous part and it’s an ugly emotion that hurts.

I’m not generally a sensitive person, but I tend to be more sensitive toward others and what they’re going through. I don’t know if that’s the healthiest thing, but it’s the truth.

Just because I managed to do a little something, I don’t want anyone back home to think I got the big head.

Hollywood is not suited for me, and I am not suited for it.

I believe that God’s dream is that we be successful in our careers, and that we be able to send our kids to college. I don’t mean that everyone is going to be rich, and I preach a lot on blooming where you’re planted. But I don’t have the mindset that money is a bad thing.

There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

I worked out early on to give up things I couldn’t do well at all.