The mind of a 19-year-old is very different from the mind of a 26-year-old. You grow. You get into better relationships. You experience more, meet more people, better people. But when you’re in a dark hole at an earlier point in your life – you write about the mindset you’re in at that moment.

The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt.

I’m not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.

What a terrible thing to have lost one’s mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.

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

Friends are thieves of time.

It’s very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

There’s definitely going to be things that I’m not very good at, things I can improve.

An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.

People have different emotional levels. Especially when you’re young.

The self is hateful.

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career: ‚You never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.‘

I’m a super-duper over-analyzer. You mix that with self-doubt and pressure, and that’s never healthy.

The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

I don’t really read a lot of newspapers. I don’t pay attention to what is being said or written about me. I’ve had lots of experiences in the past when I got too much into it. That sort of diverts your focus.

But there is a difference between cozying up to power and being close to power.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

I can’t consciously explain how people feel after reading my books. All is too personal.

Whatever is making you so angry, it’s time for you to give it to God and get over it.

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.

The one thing that I keep learning over and over again is that I don’t know nothing. I mean, that’s my life lesson.

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

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

I don’t think any country is perfect. It’s our responsibility to do the best we can do to change the things we don’t like. I think that’s part of social responsibility, and everybody is going to do that in their own way.

Solitude is independence.

The time to worrying about flying is when you’re on the ground. When you’re up in the air, it’s too late. No point in worrying about it then.

College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.

I believe time wounds all heels.

Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.

Life opens up opportunities to you, and you either take them or you stay afraid of taking them.

Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.

Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.

People don’t usually compliment your character.

If every choice you make comes from an honest place, you’re solid, and nothing anybody can say about you can rock you or change your opinion.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

This is not writing at all. Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant.

As a kid from Compton, you can get all the success in the world and still question your worth.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining, faultfinding, and a negative, judgmental attitude.

Egos are never nice. I have been a victim of it a lot of times in my career. Whenever I have used it, I have failed.

Bitterness is cancer – it eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

I spent more time on dark ships in danger zones than any other woman in the world.

If I couldn’t laugh I just would go insane, If we couldn’t laugh we just would go insane, If we weren’t all crazy we would go insane.

I’m more of an adventurous type than a relationship type.

I’ve always felt that if I examine myself too much, I’ll find out what I know and don’t know, and I’ll burst the bubble. I’ve gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I’d rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.

Every man is his own hell.

Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.

The difficult thing is that vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I’m willing to show you. In you, it’s courage and daring. In me, it’s weakness.

As a kid, I’d go into the bathroom when I was having a tantrum. I’d be in the bathroom crying, studying myself in the mirror. I was preparing for future roles.

A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.