Everybody always laughs because I feel so much more comfortable with, like, a giant paper bag on my whole body and paint on my face. Sometimes I try really hard to take it all off. But inevitably what’s underneath is still not a straight edge. And I don’t think it ever will be.

I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

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

I love imperfections.

I put my flaws on front street. So the world accepted my flaws, so I don’t have any flaws.

Keep in mind that no matter how perfectly you get your life in order, you will never be rid of all your problems. Problems are a way of life, always have been, always will be. But how you elect to view those problems is all up to you.

People think I’m a celebrity. I’m not a celebrity.

You start to become successful, and everybody starts to drive your money train to the bank, and they’re not thinking anymore about what you want as an artist or if any of that even matters to you. It genuinely upsets people in my life that I don’t care about money, and that’s not my problem.

I don’t really like to call myself a brand, and I don’t like to think of myself as a brand. I’m a singer, a songwriter, a musician and a performer. And an actress, and all the other things that I do. When you add it all together, some might call it a brand, but that’s not my focus.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously.

If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.

Would you believe in what you believe in if you were the only one who believed it?

I always have been an activist for things that were just authentically a part of my life, that I felt connected to.

I continuously go further and further learning about my own limitations, my body limitation, psychological limitations. It’s a way of life for me.

I need to keep working on myself for a while.

I’ve seen zero evidence of any nation on Earth other than Mexico even remotely having the slightest clue what Mexican food is about or even come close to reproducing it. It is perhaps the most misunderstood country and cuisine on Earth.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

I don’t have a problem with ageing – in fact, I embrace that aspect of it. And am able to and obviously am going to be able to quite easily… it doesn’t faze me at all.

People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never.

Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

Never do things others can do and will do if there are things others cannot do or will not do.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

As human beings, we are all not conducting just one narrative but many narratives all at the same time.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

There are women who can make you feel more with their bodies and their souls, but these are the exact women who will turn the knife into you right in front of the crowd. Of course, I expect this, but the knife still cuts.

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.

I’m a child of God first. Before I became a celebrity, I was baptized a Christian.

I think people should feel encouraged to be themselves.

At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn’t exist except as a part of everything.

Self-talk, for me, has been the biggest thing in my life. A lot of us have a dialogue that is crap. It’s a crappy dialogue. We live in a world right now that is very external. Everything is very on the surface. Superficial. Everything. And what we’re telling ourselves is what we see on TV.

Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are.

Home, more than anything, means warmth and bed.

We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences, and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves: nothing original, pristine, clear.

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.

I don’t know who I touch and who I don’t. I work hard trying to make people laugh. I try to do the kind of stuff that made me laugh growing up. I don’t have any secrets. I don’t know the reasons I’ve been so well received.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

Nobody has ever convinced me that race is real.

We feel and know that we are eternal.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way.

When I got somethin‘ to say, I’ll say it.

Actors know what actors are insecure about – and they’re all insecure.

Hate has no place in the house of God.

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.

I’m not concerned with people seeing me in a certain way. Some people see me as a kid, some people see me as an adult. But I’m seriously not going to complain how anybody sees me, as long as they see me.

Only the shallow know themselves.

Because we’re actors we can pretend and fake it, but I’d rather the intimate investment was authentic.

People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.

I guess if I’m a product, either you’re chocolate, you’re vanilla or you’re butterscotch. You can’t be all three.

When I write a book, I write a book for myself; the reaction is up to the reader. It’s not my business whether people like or dislike it.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, ‚The Intoxication of Life,‘ ‚The Purpose of Life,‘ ‚The Real Cause of Man’s Distress,‘ ‚The Journey to the Goal in Life,‘ and, one of my favorites, ‚The Heart of Man.‘ They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.