All my stepchildren carried the burden of my fame. Sometimes they would read terrible things about me, and I’d worry about whether it would hurt them. I would tell them: ‚Don’t hide these things from me. I’d rather you ask me these things straight out, and I’ll answer all your questions.‘

Never be the only one, except, possibly, in your own home.

All of the people in my life whom I consider to be close friends or colleagues are good thinkers.

I made a decision when my father passed away that I was going to be who God made me to be and not try to preach like my father.

Never ask anyone over 70 how they feel. They’ll tell you.

I’m not the girl who always has a boyfriend. I’m the girl who rarely has a boyfriend.

What’s so beautiful about Miami is that we support each other. We’re just one big family, not just the entertainers, just everyone in general.

I listen to my mother, and that keeps me out of trouble. I’m a good son.

When the players go home, I can’t tell them what to do, so you need to create an atmosphere of trust. I don’t want to think, ‚What are they doing now? Do I need to call them?‘

The secret to a long marriage is to stay gone.

A friend is, as it were, a second self.

Love, we say, is life; but love without hope and faith is agonizing death.

I believe with all my heart that America remains ‚the great idea‘ that inspires the world. It is a privilege to be born here. It is an honor to become a citizen here. It is a gift to raise your family here, to vote here, and to live here.

My mother was a full-time mother. She didn’t have much of her own career, her own life, her own experiences… everything was for her children. I will never be as good a mother as she was. She was just grace incarnate. She was the most generous, loving – she’s better than me.

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

Who, being loved, is poor?

Every family should have the right to spend their money, after tax, as they wish, and not as the government dictates. Let us extend choice, extend the will to choose and the chance to choose.

Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experience, but that’s not where I live.

It isn’t necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy.

I believe when it comes to love, there’s something intangible about who we are attracted to, and I don’t think I have a pattern.

Let’s be honest. Canada wasn’t ever cool.

You have to listen very carefully and tell the truth if you are going to get a paranoid person to open up to you.

If I have the chance to say something, I will say it – but that doesn’t obligate me to always say something, or to shed light on every problem, as if I were a lawmaker.

The more I grow in popularity, the lonelier it gets. Because you don’t really know me. You just know this part of me. You fell in love with that. But it’s way more intricate than what meets the surface.

A friend will tell you she saw your old boyfriend – and he’s a priest.

I think a father is important for everyone. If you don’t have, then maybe not so much. In the world today, it’s possible that you grow up with only one parent in the family.

I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.

There’s nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It’s a thing no married man knows anything about.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.

Throughout my career, I fed off the fuel of people not being able to understand me.

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

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.

If you’re working 50 hours a week to try to maintain family income, and your children have the kinds of aspirations that come from being flooded with television from age one, and associations have declined, people end up hopeless, even though they have every option.

If a star or studio chief or any other great movie personages find themselves sitting among a lot of nobodies, they get frightened – as if somebody was trying to demote them.

Words may show a man’s wit but actions his meaning.

The most dangerous word in any human tongue is the word for brother. It’s inflammatory.

Love is a serious mental disease.

A letter does not blush.

They say marriages are made in Heaven. But so is thunder and lightning.

I was offered a job on Wall Street by my uncle. But I wanted to get out. Make-it-on-my-own kinda thing.

Sometimes I’ve been to a party where no one spoke to me for a whole evening. The men, frightened by their wives or sweeties, would give me a wide berth. And the ladies would gang up in a corner to discuss my dangerous character.

There is just no comparison between having a dinner date with a man and staying home playing canasta with the girls.

My family was mostly unemployed working class.

I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.

The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

The kids are old enough now – I just want to let them be kids. I don’t want to comment on them too much. They’re at an age where I just want to let them be kids.

I don’t have anything to hide.

Swearing is industry language. For as long as we’re alive it’s not going to change. You’ve got to be boisterous to get results.

It’s a funny thing that when a man hasn’t anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.

I try to speak in a way that people can understand.

The loss of a child is my greatest nightmare.

Family and friendships are two of the greatest facilitators of happiness.

We care for each other and care about our family, and we are both working towards the same goal.

I’m over being a pop star. I don’t wanna be a hot girl. I wanna be iconic. And I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot. I feel like I’m highly respected, which is more important than any award or any amount of records. And I feel like there comes a point when being a pop star is not enough.

The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it – and sometimes three.

I think some of my colleagues‘ spicier lines are distracting. They draw attention away from what the justice is trying to say.

I will never be happy without having someone. Going to sleep alone kills me.

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.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.