An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

I specifically did not read other First Ladies‘ books, because I didn’t want to be influenced by how they defined the role. I knew that I would have to find this role – very uniquely and specifically to me and who I was.

If something can corrupt you, you’re corrupted already.

Everybody has talent, it’s just a matter of moving around until you’ve discovered what it is.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that’s true of everyone, don’t you?

Whenever you are angry, be assured that it is not only a present evil, but that you have increased a habit.

Live the life you’ve dreamed.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.

It’s hard to be humble, when you’re as great as I am.

I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don’t recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.

No man is hurt but by himself.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.

I’m not the same man I used to be, I’m not out hell-raising, stuff like that. I am a changed man.

All of us are mentors. You’re mentors right here and now. And one of the things I’ve always done throughout my life, I have always found that person, that group of people that I was going to reach my hand out and help bring them along with me.

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the quality it should have.

It is always your next move.

The fact that you are willing to say, ‚I do not understand, and it is fine,‘ is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.

I think who you are in school really sticks with you. I don’t ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It’s like, ‚Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.‘

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

I suppose for a very long time I’ve been trying to understand how it is that people might make sense out of their lives and make meaning and make their lives meaningful in the face of the trouble that life brings.

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

Music was an experience, intimately married to your life. You could pay to hear music, but after you did, it was over, gone – a memory.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it – aliens.

I’d always somehow felt slightly as if I’d been born in the wrong country.

It’s certainly not wrong to want to be a better person. God gave us that desire.

In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and to the young, it comes with bitterest agony because it takes them unawares. I have had experience enough to know what I say.

All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.

A sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.

I was asked to act when I couldn’t act. I was asked to sing ‚Funny Face‘ when I couldn’t sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn’t dance – and do all kinds of things I wasn’t prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.

It is more difficult to rule yourself than to rule a city.

Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.

You simply have to accept that your demons are a part of you.

I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.

I’m honest enough to say I don’t know everything. You know, I don’t. I don’t understand all of God. I don’t understand, you know, some kind of why bad things happen.

Even if you’re happy with the life you’ve chosen, you’re still curious about the other options.

Don’t compare yourself with other people; compare yourself with who you were yesterday.

I like to recede away from classifications. You might say that indicates a fundamental lack of commitment. I suppose that’s true to some degree.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

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

We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It’s a death trap.

I’ve always had a problem with the average macho man – they’ve always been a threat to me.

I grew up in an environment where being polite was taken as a weakness. So I just fought everybody.

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.

I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn’t that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I’d already been translating French poetry, I’d been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

In terms of doing work and in terms of learning and evolving as a person, you just grow more when you get more people’s perspectives… I really try and live the mission of the company and… keep everything else in my life extremely simple.

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.

I’m giving all that I have in this life. I’m opening up my notebook, and I’m saying everything in there out loud.

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.

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

There are people in the world who have skills and strength and talent that I will never have. Never. These notions that you can ‚be whatever you want to be as long as you want it bad enough‘ are not true. They are fairy tales.