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

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.

I more fear what is within me than what comes from without.

We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change you’re the one who has got to change.

Although I don’t have a prescription for what others should do, I know I have been very fortunate and feel a responsibility to give back to society in a very significant way.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

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

The more you seek the uncomfortable, the more you will become comfortable.

Once you begin to fall off the track and believe you breathe different air to everyone else, you’re doomed; you’re finished.

Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.

The people of Northern Ireland have sorted out my whole life.

Our goal in the ’70s was to end the closed door era. There were so many things that were off limits to women: policing, firefighting, mining, piloting planes.

I can’t keep somebody from being a star, and I can’t make somebody a star, and nobody can.

I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being.

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.

Now I am older, I understand we have to accept who we are.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

I love the attention but I don’t like too much of it.

We all self-conscious. I’m just the first to admit it.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.

We don’t have to let extremists define us.

I’ve never been reckless – it’s always calculated. I’m mischievous, but I’m calculated.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

Responsibility is the price of freedom.

I was in my late thirties when my eyes were opened to truth in God’s Word that showed me I wasn’t living the abundant life Jesus died for me to have. I had a very negative mindset and was miserable most of the time because of the abuse I had experienced throughout my childhood.

I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I’ve never been bored in my life.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

Responsibility, I believe, accrues through privilege.

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

I don’t want followers.

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

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that’s Memoirs.

I grew up in a funny way.

I’ve heard there are troubles of more than one kind; some come from ahead, and some come from behind. But I’ve brought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see; now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!

Well, I think we tried very hard not to be overconfident, because when you get overconfident, that’s when something snaps up and bites you.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‚I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,‘ and I actually meant it.

If selfishness is the key to being miserable, then selflessness must be the key to being happy!

I like to take every day just searching my own heart, making sure that I’m on course, and I’m doing what God wants me to do. I’m real good with not looking to the critics and looking straight ahead.

Therapy? I don’t need that. The roles that I choose are my therapy.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.

You can have the platinum album. But, you know, when you still feel like you haven’t quite found your place in the world, it kind of gives a crazy offset.

I’m sick of the tabloids‘ saying I obsess over guys. Why would you obsess over guys? They don’t like it.

My freshman and sophomore years in high school, I spent a lot of time trying to get back on the right track. I was arrested multiple times by the time I was 16, so I had a little harder time trying to adjust like a lot of us do in high school.

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.

I’m still living at least five parallel lives, honestly! I wonder about it. I have no idea how that happens.

Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.

Don’t just let the devil use your mind as a garbage dump.

What I enjoy most is doing something I’ve never done before.

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was ‚call attention to yourself,‘ or ‚think you were smart.‘ My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

When a country has the skill and self-confidence to take action against its biggest problems, it makes outsiders eager to be a part of it.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

Nothing new here, except my marrying, which to me is a matter of profound wonder.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

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.

Many people, especially young people, would like to be more independent and on their own. But it is very difficult and they suffer from feelings of isolation. I think that is one reason why young readers support my work.