Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by his heart, and his friends can only read the title.

For me, ‚risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

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!

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

I mean we all need a second chance sometimes.

Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be.

I was becoming post-ideological.

If you look at my life, generally, I’ve been put in situations which were difficult and which I conquered.

People have so many hang-ups about how other people live their lives. People always want to keep you in a little box, or they need to label you and fix you in time and location.

And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren’t any other people living in the world.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

I’ve got a woman’s ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.

I didn’t consider myself a fashion designer at all at the time of punk. I was just using fashion as a way to express my resistance and to be rebellious. I came from the country, and by the time I got to London, I considered myself to be very stupid. It was my ambition to understand the world I live in.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.

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.

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

Because, you know, resilience – if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you’d be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn’t a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.

You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

I had to come from something, come from a place that was negative and positive but the majority of it is a negative place.

Everything I read about hitting a midlife crisis was true. I had such a struggle letting go of youthful things and learning how to exist and have enthusiasm while settling into the comfort of an older age.

When I was writing ‚Kitchen Confidential,‘ I was in my 40s, I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car.

If your inner life is not producing what you would like on the outside, don’t be discouraged… just be willing to change.

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

I have often been downcast but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the same time. In my diary, I treat all the privations as amusing.

I don’t have the best track record with quotes.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

I’m not going to stop having problems.

In my entire life, any time I’ve ever lost something, I’ve gotten something even better going around the next corner. It’s like one door closes and another door opens. As long as I can walk through the produce section in every grocery store in this country and eat the grapes that they’re going to throw away, I know I can be fine.

If there is only one thing in my life that I am proud of, it’s that I’ve never been a kept woman.

When I came into this industry, I was never afraid to be myself.

Me not finishing school – in my head, I still have this insecurity when I’m talking to someone educated.

I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things.

Let go of offence. Let go of fear. Let go of revenge. Don’t live angry, let go now!

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

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.

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.

Through every victory and every setback, I’ve insisted that change is never easy and never quick; that we wouldn’t meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime.

The drama and the trauma of the relationship you have when you’re 16 can mirror the one you have when you’re 26. Life repeats itself.

A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

What you are comes to you.

When I was young, I could not imagine being old. My mother said, and the doctor confirmed, that I had an unusual amount of energy; and it followed me into young adulthood.

I’m concerned that my technical skills have advanced to the point where I can get closer to what I’m aiming for, which is not such a good thing.

I even found it difficult to watch myself playing on TV because I couldn’t identify with the person on the screen. I couldn’t get to grips with it. It was as if it was all happening to someone else.

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.

Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can. Always stay near me, for tomorrow I will have much to do and more than I ever had, and tomorrow blood will leave my body above the breast.

We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.

The world remains ever the same.

Life is about growing and improving and getting better.

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.

I know this sounds strange, but as a kid, I was really shy. Painfully shy. The turning point was freshman year, when I was the biggest geek alive. No one, I mean no one, even talked to me.

I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.