God didn’t make me to make movies, flex muscles, buy gold. What you love the most becomes your God… If I never make another dollar, my life is complete.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?

I’m not intelligent. I’m not arrogant. I’m just like the people who read my books. I used to have a jazz club, and I made the cocktails and I made the sandwiches. I didn’t want to become a writer – it just happened.

Many people identify their sense of self with the problems they have, or think they have.

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.

We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change you’re the one who has got to change.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

I know I got angels watchin me from the other side.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

I know that there are millions of Americans who are content with their health care coverage – they like their plan and, most importantly, they value their relationship with their doctor.

You are the universe, you aren’t in the universe.

Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.

I notice that young men go to the universities in order to become doctors or philosophers or anything, so long as it is a title, and that many go in for those professions who are utterly unfit for them, while others who would be very competent are prevented by business or their daily cares, which keep them away from letters.

God made you a masterpiece – be blessed, secure, disciplined and equipped.

Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief.

I’m not a natural born performer.

I’m 31 now. I think I’m beginning to understand what life is, what romance is, and what a relationship means.

The fact is I am not having sex. But I feel absolutely ripe for the, what would you say? plucking?

Allah’s the Arabic term for God. Stand up for God, fight for God, work for God and do the right thing, and go the right way, things will end up in your corner.

Give yourself a gift of five minutes of contemplation in awe of everything you see around you. Go outside and turn your attention to the many miracles around you. This five-minute-a-day regimen of appreciation and gratitude will help you to focus your life in awe.

It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.

Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.

I do things I love doing. Sometimes that is maybe going out to have a drink with friends, going out partying or whatever.

Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.

I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, ‚Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.‘

I’m a human being. I’ve got opinions, I’m not always right, I’m not always on time, I don’t always say things in the proper way, but my intentions are always extremely pure.

Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one’s own religion.

Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.

God is not so wary as we, else He would give us no friends, lest we forget Him! The charms of the heaven in the bush are superseded, I fear, by the heaven in the hand, occasionally.

Glory be and praise to God. I didn’t do any of this. God did. I don’t have a recipe or a blueprint. I prayed for it, and my prayers are continuing to be answered.

I believe in God – not in a Catholic God; there is no Catholic God. There is God, and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation. Jesus is my teacher and my pastor, but God, the Father, Abba, is the light and the Creator. This is my Being.

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.

There’s no happier person than a truly thankful, content person.

Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.

I am a simple Buddhist monk – no more, no less.

I have no delusions about my likability in every scenario. I know that in order to get things done the way you want them, oftentimes your position will be unpopular.

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.

I think beating myself up sometimes and knowing I am not happy when I do it makes me work harder to do a good job.

In times of need, God can come to you in a myriad of disguises.

In retrospect, I can see I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!

Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected.

The more nobly a man wills and acts, the more avid he becomes for great and sublime aims to pursue. He will no longer be content with family, country, and the remunerative aspect of his work. He will want wider organisations to create, new paths to blaze, causes to uphold, truths to discover, an ideal to cherish and defend.

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

The answer to many of the domestic problems we face is not higher taxes and more spending. It is less waste, more results and greater freedom for the individual American to earn a rightful place in his own community – and for States and localities to address their own needs in their own ways, in the light of their own priorities.

Don’t ever criticize yourself. Don’t go around all day long thinking, ‚I’m unattractive, I’m slow, I’m not as smart as my brother.‘ God wasn’t having a bad day when he made you… If you don’t love yourself in the right way, you can’t love your neighbour. You can’t be as good as you are supposed to be.

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!

As your career grows, the list of things that makes you happy should not become smaller, it should become bigger.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

Favor comes because for a brief moment in the great space of human change and progress some general human purpose finds in him a satisfactory embodiment.

Southeast Asia has a real grip on me. From the very first time I went there, it was a fulfillment of my childhood fantasies of the way travel should be.

I’m super self-critical, which I think is good, because then I get exactly what I want. I’m critical of other people, too – I try not to be, though.

I just enjoy it, I am living a life that I never even dreamt of.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

Every day I pray about all I do.

But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people, and do our best to help them find their own grace. That’s what I strive to do, that’s what I pray to do every day.