Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they’re not trying to keep up with you.

Prison life, fortunately, I spent a lot of years, about 18 years with other prisoners, and, as I say, they enriched your soul.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

I’ve lived a very colorful life, and I’ve said some things, But not once have I taken them back, and I’ve never apologized for them – and I won’t.

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

The Bible tells us to be perfect. This is likely a scary thought for many people. It used to scare me. I didn’t think I could ever get there, no matter how hard I tried.

The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.

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

Only the really plain people know about love – the very fascinating ones try so hard to create an impression that they soon exhaust their talents.

Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration.

It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

Nearly all the things I do that are of any merit at all start off just being good fun, and I think I’m sort of building up to doing something else quite soon.

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

This way of life is worth defending.

To be ashamed of one’s immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one’s morality.

I get naturally uncomfortable when I’m put under a magnifying glass.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

When you look at the sun during your walking meditation, the mindfulness of the body helps you to see that the sun is in you; without the sun there is no life at all and suddenly you get in touch with the sun in a different way.

Learn to say ‚no‘ to the good so you can say ‚yes‘ to the best.

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.

A shady business never yields a sunny life.

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.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

What is a fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself – for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.

What’s fascinating is, people in Washington would rather spend time in Hollywood, and people in Hollywood would rather spend time in Washington.

It’s always a struggle growing up in Akron.

My work is about my life, and what I want to do with it.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

I’m always attracted to people who interest me. They’ve got to be people who are really true to themselves somehow, and who are always trying to do something that makes their life more interesting, or better, or something for somebody else. They’re interested in people.

I have lost my mental faculties but am perfectly well.

I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was 23 and the way I handled that.

I really have no interest in myself.

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.

People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

Where much is expected from an individual, he may rise to the level of events and make the dream come true.

People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.

So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?

That’s the biggest gift I can give anybody: ‚Wake up, be aware of who you are, what you’re doing and what you can do to prevent yourself from becoming ill.‘

Everyone is different. Everyone has different teams they’ve played on, coaches they’ve played for.

I’m really trying to dredge up what one might call intellectual and moral material. For example, when do you realize that you are an American? What age does that happen to you? When do you realize what religion your parents practice? When does it all become conscious? I was interested in exploring all of that.

I have trouble with letting go. That’s my problem.

I’m not a bad person.

My reputation grows with every failure.

Face your fears and doubts, and new worlds will open to you.

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl.

You cannot see the changes that you’re dreaming about, because they’re internal.

My public is growing up just as I am. After all, I’m not 19 anymore and if I stick with the sex bit, who will be paying to see me when I’m 50?

If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia.

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.

The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.

My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.

What comes out when life squeezes you? When someone hurts or offends you? If anger, pain and fear come out of you, it’s because that’s what’s inside.

We’ve been programmed, from the time that we were very, very little, about what we can’t do – about what is impossible.

Really, who you are is defined by the people who you know – not even the people that you know, but the people you spend time with and the people that you love and the people that you work with. I guess we show your friends in your profile, but that’s kind of different from the information you put in your profile.