Exercise is really important to me – it’s therapeutic. So if I’m ever feeling tense or stressed or like I’m about to have a meltdown, I’ll put on my iPod and head to the gym or out on a bike ride along Lake Michigan with the girls.

Sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life.

I always teach myself calm and visualization stuff.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy.

I don’t need therapy. I’m not going to see a therapist; comedy acts as my therapy. I put my problems out there. I talk about them. I talk about everything before anybody has a chance.

As a shame researcher, I know that the very best thing to do in the midst of a shame attack is totally counterintuitive: Practice courage and reach out!

That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

Mothers and daughters generally have fairly complex relationships, and ours was made much more so by Mother’s illness. She had Parkinson’s disease, which was not diagnosed for a long time… All that made me very self-protective, because for one thing, I didn’t want to get trapped.

There are so many emotions that you’re feeling, you can get stifled by them if you’re feeling them all at once. What I try to do is take one moment – one simple, simple feeling – and expand it into three-and-a-half minutes.

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.

Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

No, I’m not anguished and tormented.

Saints can be happy under every circumstance.

Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.

No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward.

It is better to be alone than in bad company.

Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.

To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.

I have never felt more confident in myself, more clear on who I am as a woman. But I am constantly thinking about my own health and making sure that I’m eating right and getting exercise and watching the aches and pains. I want to be this really fly 80-90-year old.

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.

Running started as a way of relaxing. It’s the only time I have to myself. No phones or e-mails or faxes.

Getting stress out of your life takes more than prayer alone. You must take action to make changes and stop doing whatever is causing the stress. You can learn to calm down in the way you handle things.

The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind.

I am alone a lot, which is good. I need that time to just be alone after a long day, just decompress. So, I go to either my house or the hotel, or my apartment, or whatever – wherever I am, I go home and I watch TV and I sit there, with my cat, and I just watch TV or go online, check my emails.

I write songs that are like diary entries. I have to do it in order to feel sane.

I take my sleep very, very important.

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day.

A great hallmark of mental wellness is the ability to be in the present moment, fully and with no thoughts of being elsewhere.

What keeps me up at night? Anxiety. Anxiety, the inability to go to sleep, it’s quite literally that.

There is a lot of pressure put on me, but I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself. I feel if I play my game, it will take care of itself.

I look at how my kids view exercise. They have a complete understanding that nutrition and exercise go hand in hand. I didn’t think like that when I was a kid. But they have a real consciousness about it that I’d like to think comes from the years of attention we’ve put into this.

I love being active.

I restore myself when I’m alone.

When your soul is resting, your emotions are okay, your mind is okay, and your will is at peace with God, not resisting what He’s doing.

In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.

Physical comforts cannot subdue mental suffering, and if we look closely, we can see that those who have many possessions are not necessarily happy. In fact, being wealthy often brings even more anxiety.

Many of my fans often tell me that they listen to my songs to get through things. And therefore, obviously, I hope that they can picture being in a place where things are better… I hope my songs can bring people to a calm place.

I don’t have emotional needs, only physical ones.

You will be as much value to others as you have been to yourself.

I have no time to think about other writers. I am too busy with my own problems.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

I’ve had no problem harnessing anger.

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.

I didn’t get depressed, I don’t get depressed.

I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. And I have felt this way ever since all this success started.

It’s crazy how fast you get out of shape if you miss a couple days of action.

People are just afraid of things too much. Afraid of things that don’t necessarily merit fear.

For me, there have been times when an action movie, even a ‚Tomb Raider,‘ has helped me get out of myself and be physical again. It’s like therapy.

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.

What a terrible thing to have lost one’s mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.

I’m a super-duper over-analyzer. You mix that with self-doubt and pressure, and that’s never healthy.

Do I have chocolate chip cookies? Yes, I do. Do I have mint chocolate chip milkshakes? Yes, I do. I love them. They are fantastic. But when I have them, they’re worth it. I earned them. I did something. I worked out super hard. I stayed clean on food.

Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.

Music is so therapeutic for me that if I can’t get it out, I start feeling bad about myself – a lot of self-loathing.

Memories are thoughts that arise. They’re not realities. Only when you believe that they are real, then they have the power over you. But when you realize it’s just another thought arising about the past, then you can have a spacious relationship with that thought. The thought no longer has you in its grip.

When you wash your hands, when you make a cup of coffee, when you’re waiting for the elevator – instead of indulging in thinking, these are all opportunities for being there as a still, alert presence.

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.