Certainly I’m not going to sit on the Internet all day and read what Sam from Iowa is saying about me. But I’m a sponge. I’ve always been a sponge.

Hatred is self-punishment.

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.

I like to read books. I like to listen to music.

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‚Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?‘

What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.

The power of our thoughts may never be measured or appreciated, but it became obvious to me as a young boy that there was value and power in being aware of my thoughts and how I expressed myself.

It’s only I have seen enough of it and the funny thing is now, I know that I’m skinny, because I know there are even smaller clothes in the store. I think I’m big, when I was big, I never thought about it.

A man’s own judgment should be the final appeal in all that relates to himself.

Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.

The first two games for Churchill, I was so jittery that I didn’t know what to do. I was running more but didn’t know what to do. I’ve no bones accepting the fact that I didn’t know what was happening in the game.

My number one thing? Don’t overleverage yourself. Don’t say you can do something when you really can’t.

Overall there’s going to be things I’m not great at.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

I was always taught not to answer no questions. I’m not really good at answering them because I get agitated so fast.

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.

These things bring you to reality as to how fragile you are; at the same moment you are doing something that nobody else is able to do. The same moment that you are seen as the best, the fastest and somebody that cannot be touched, you are enormously fragile.

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That’s not a guess, it’s a guarantee. With pride, it’s not a matter of ‚if‘ we will fall, but ‚when.‘ There are no exceptions.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

I’m very aware and very conscious of the path I chose in life, and very aware of the path I didn’t choose.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

Some people carry their heart in their head and some carry their head in their heart. The trick is to keep them apart yet working together.

Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They’re only powerful when you got your back turned.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

No person is important enough to make me angry.

Buddhism teaches us not to try to run away from suffering. You have to confront suffering. You have to look deeply into the nature of suffering in order to recognize its cause, the making of the suffering.

I’m one of them guys that tries to make everything the best of the best, so sometimes I’m out of control with it.

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love.

One of the most important things you learn from the Internet is that there is no ‚them‘ out there. It’s just an awful lot of ‚us.‘

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

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

Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

I felt I had to solve everyone’s problems.

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

‚Mystic River‘ just smelled interesting to me. So I read it and liked it right away. Even the dialogue in it was great.

I approach love differently now that I know it’s hard for it to work out.

Become slower in your journey through life. Practice yoga and meditation if you suffer from ‚hurry sickness.‘ Become more introspective by visiting quiet places such as churches, museums, mountains and lakes. Give yourself permission to read at least one novel a month for pleasure.

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career: ‚You never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.‘

When people are lame, they love to blame.

My head’s never really quiet. The only time I can get it to turn off is if I watch ‚CSI‘ or ‚Law & Order,‘ where I have to follow the crime. If I can’t turn my head off during that, I know I’ve really got a problem.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

My body is quite tiny, but a lot of the emotions I feel are pretty explosive. They have to come out.

The truth doesn’t hurt unless it ought to.

My message isn’t perfectly defined. I have, as a human being, fallen to peer pressure.

If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, ‚Oh, I forgot that bit,‘ then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you’ve figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!

The first book I ever really read was Plato’s ‚Republic,‘ and then I had to go over that five times or something.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

Don’t just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.

You don’t lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.

It is important for you to know who you are and who you may become. It is more important than what you do, even as vital as your work is and will be.