Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you make.

There are a lot of people who don’t know me and what I am all about.

When I’m in my 50s, I kind of think I’ll want to be in a garden.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

I don’t want to make money; I want to make a difference.

You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.

I was born in a very poor family. I used to sell tea in a railway coach as a child. My mother used to wash utensils and do lowly household work in the houses of others to earn a livelihood. I have seen poverty very closely. I have lived in poverty. As a child, my entire childhood was steeped in poverty.

It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.

Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.

The sun doesn’t always shine in West Virginia, but the people do.

Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.

I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.

The people in my songs are all me.

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.

You can’t stop everything from happening. But we’ve gotten to a point where we’re certainly trying. If a car doesn’t have four hundred air bags in it, then it’s no good.

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.

Success is due to our stretching to the challenges of life. Failure comes when we shrink from them.

Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.

It is amazing how a new child can refocus one’s direction seconds after its birth.

I believe that when you think of the negative, and you get up discouraged – ‚There’s nothing good in my future‘ – I really believe it almost ties the hands of God. God works where there’s an attitude of faith. I believe faith is all about hope.

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

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

I always knew that St. Jude was an amazing organization but meeting the kids and seeing how the hospital works first hand was truly beautiful. It doesn’t feel like a regular hospital all dreary and sad. It’s a colorful, beautiful, comfortable, fun place to live and the energy is wonderful.

Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice… No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out.

Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.

If there are people you haven’t forgiven, you’re not going to really awaken. You have to let go.

I’m not a natural performer or exhibitionist. When I was younger, I hated the focus, and it made me feel strange.

The best way out of a difficulty is through it.

I always believed that when you follow your heart or your gut, when you really follow the things that feel great to you, you can never lose, because settling is the worst feeling in the world.

When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.

True wealth is not of the pocket, but of the heart and of the mind.

By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.

Travel teaches toleration.

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

I had never been in charge of anything. I’d always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I’d never been in charge of an organization.

Your entire life only happens in this moment. The present moment is life itself. Yet, people live as if the opposite were true and treat the present moment as a stepping stone to the next moment – a means to an end.

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

Something I’ve realized lately, to my shock, is that I am an optimist, in that I think humans are almost infinitely capable of self-change and self-modification, and that we really can build the future that we want if we’re smart about it.

You can never get enough of what you don’t want.

I understand aggressiveness in only one way: being prepared to hurt yourself, not someone else.

I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers.

Every one of my regrets has produced a song I’m proud of.

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

I’ve learned a lot since I was a new mother. My approach to struggle and shame now is to talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love and reach out to tell your story.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

One must marry one’s feelings to one’s beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one’s life.

I believe that having a spiritual life is so important in everybody’s life.

It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.

I look at where I’m at today and realize that most of my success is owed to the mentors that was in my life.

Love is a better teacher than duty.

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.

I’m not going to stop having problems.