As a shame researcher, I know that the very best thing to do in the midst of a shame attack is totally counterintuitive: Practice courage and reach out!

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

I like to let things breathe.

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.

I don’t carry the burden of the past or the madness of the future. I live in the present.

I think the best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I’ve got Alzheimer’s.

I don’t know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

The only difference between the sane and the insane is that the sane have the power to lock up the insane.

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

Ain’t nothing like a good cry.

None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.

Falsehood is cowardice, the truth courage.

But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

A lot of people ask me, ‚How did you have the courage to walk up to record labels when you were 12 or 13 and jump right into the music industry?‘ It’s because I knew I could never feel the kind of rejection that I felt in middle school. Because in the music industry, if they’re gonna say no to you, at least they’re gonna be polite about it.

I was awfully curious to find out why I didn’t go insane.

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.

He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.

We judge people in areas where we’re vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we’re doing.

I am in my own head most of the time.

My earliest books focus almost entirely on psychological tools to help readers employ effective commonsense approaches to problems. There are no references to God or a higher self in the first 15 or so years of my publishing history.

I’ve had sleep paralysis.

The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.

Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It’s a black wall. It’s a thief.

Mind over mattress.

When your soul is resting, your emotions are okay, your mind is okay, and your will is at peace with God, not resisting what He’s doing.

Love is a serious mental disease.

Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor.

It doesn’t take much to make me angry.

The best marriages are the ones where we can go out in the world and really put ourselves out there. A lot of times we’ll fail, and sometimes we’ll pull it off. But good marriages are when you can go home and know that your vulnerability will be honored as courage, and that you’ll find support.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

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

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

I think it’s very important to cry in the shower and not in front of them. They need to know that everything’s going to be all right, even when you’re not sure it is.

I’ll never tell a lie. I’ll never make a misleading statement. I’ll never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I’ll never avoid a controversial issue.

We all get weary sometimes, and we tend to think that life is what makes us weary.

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.

Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are.

I look like a casual, laid-back guy, but it’s like a circus in my head.

Reproach is shame, blame, disgrace, disapproval and a disrespectful attitude toward yourself. When you’re under reproach, your behavior shows it.

As long as the people don’t fear the truth, there is hope. For once they fear it, the one who tells it doesn’t stand a chance. And today, truth is still beautiful… but so frightening.

I am not afraid… I was born to do this.

It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.

For what Harley Street specialist has time to understand the body, let alone the mind or both in combination, when he is a slave to thirteen thousand a year?

As we dread any disease that undermines the health of the body, so should we deplore contention, which is a corroding canker of the spirit.

The darkness, the loop of negative thoughts on repeat, clamours and interferes with the music I hear in my head.

Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.

Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.

I’m a bold Christian, not a scaredy-cat Christian.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

Total relaxation is the secret to enjoying sitting meditation. I sit with my spine upright, but not rigid; and I relax all the muscles in my body.

The truth is that there is no actual stress or anxiety in the world; it’s your thoughts that create these false beliefs. You can’t package stress, touch it, or see it. There are only people engaged in stressful thinking.

Guilt is just as powerful, but its influence is positive, while shame’s is destructive. Shame erodes our courage and fuels disengagement.

I hesitate to use a pathologizing label, but underneath the so-called narcissistic personality is definitely shame and the paralyzing fear of being ordinary.

A ‚No‘ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‚Yes‘ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

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.

I don’t worry about stress. I create it.

When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.