Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

I have never felt more confident in myself, more clear on who I am as a woman. But I am constantly thinking about my own health and making sure that I’m eating right and getting exercise and watching the aches and pains. I want to be this really fly 80-90-year old.

I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me.

Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

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

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.

I’m not really book-smart.

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

I’ve watched a lot of people who became famous who completely change and I think it’s because they tend to believe all the hype that’s out there. I don’t think there’s that much hype about me.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

I’ve had no problem harnessing anger.

Listening to and understanding our inner sufferings will resolve most of the problems we encounter.

I don’t have any secrets I need kept any more.

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‚people.‘ People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war… Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.

There are two kinds of people in this world. ‚I‘ people and ‚we‘ people. I’ve always tried to be a ‚we‘ person.

Find out who you are. And do it on purpose.

I think what’s important is for us to decipher what is honest and what is dishonest and be accepting of those things and not operating from fear.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Fear is exciting for me.

If you stop struggling, then you stop life.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.

You can either be a host to God, or a hostage to your ego. It’s your call.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself.

To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation. But I’m working on the foundation.

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one’s self.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.

Start wide, expand further, and never look back.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

Never mistake motion for action.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Breathing in, I am aware of my heart. Breathing out, I smile to my heart and know that my heart still functions normally. I feel grateful for my heart.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

Pride is an independent, me-oriented spirit. It makes people arrogant, rude and hard to get along with. When our heart is prideful, we don’t give God the credit and we mistreat people, looking down on them and thinking we deserve what we have.

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

I don’t see myself in terms of artifice. I see myself as a real person who chooses to live my life in an open way – artistically.

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.

The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.

For a person who grew up in the ’30s and ’40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, ‚Here I am, read me.‘ Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.

I never expected to be anybody important.

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

I’m a human being. I’ve got opinions, I’m not always right, I’m not always on time, I don’t always say things in the proper way, but my intentions are always extremely pure.

I do say things that I think will shock people. But I don’t do things to shock people. I’m not trying to be the next Tupac, but I don’t know how long I’m going to be on this planet. So while I’m here, I might as well make the most of it.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education… Without a gentle contempt for education no man’s education is complete.

I’m an emotional person. Sometimes I can’t help it.

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

I didn’t try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it’s the restaurant business.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

I think it’s OK to be confident in yourself.

Often, little situations trigger enormous reactions. Be there, present for it. Your partner will find it easier to see it in you, and you will find it easier to see it in them.

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.