God has his plans and his reasons. Sometimes we are supposed to go through things so that we learn lessons.

You can be young without money but you can’t be old without it.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.

I don’t have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I’m happier now than before I developed the condition.

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.

The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.

I try to sprinkle a little gems and jewels in the music that people could use in their own life.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

Too many Christians live their lives like slaves – to the devil – because they believe his lies more than they trust God.

I can express myself.

Transforming yourself into a deep listener will not only prove more amusing as you open your mind to their mind, but you will gain the most invaluable lessons about human psychology.

Whatever I will become will be what God has chosen for me.

One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them.

Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.

If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.

I do not believe there is a problem in this country or the world today which could not be settled if approached through the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.

I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

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.

The Lord has often chosen to instruct His people in their times of trial.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.

Lots of songs aren’t even from my experiences, but they’re about accepting… the dark things about yourself.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.

Let go of yesterday. Let today be a new beginning and be the best that you can, and you’ll get to where God wants you to be.

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.

Oh, come, Divine Physician, and bind up every broken bone. Come with Thy sacred nard which Thou hast compounded of Thine own heart’s blood, and lay it home to the wounded conscience and let it feel its power. Oh! Give peace to those whose conscience is like the troubled sea which cannot rest.

I don’t dislike any of my exes. If I took time to form a relationship, it’s gonna hurt when we move on, but are you puttin‘ White-Out over all that beautiful time together? That was real time in your life. It’s connected to where you are today.

In prayer, we stand where angels bow with veiled faces. There, even there, the cherubim and seraphim adore before that selfsame throne to which our prayers ascend. And shall we come there with stunted requests and narrow, contracted faith?

The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses will be all the stronger for working together and sharing the load.

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.

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

I’ll think I have a few wonderful friends and all of a sudden, ooh, here it comes. They do a lot of things. They talk about you to the press, to their friends, tell stories, and you know, it’s disappointing.

In fact, my courage and my bravery at a young age was the thing I was bullied for, a kind of ‚Who do you think you are?‘

Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.

To understand the power of the priesthood, we must know its limitations.

You can’t have it all, all at once. Who – man or woman – has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

I walk tall; I got a tall attitude.

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.

Love is a really scary thing, and you never know what’s going to happen. It’s one of the most beautiful things in life, but it’s one of the most terrifying. It’s worth the fear because you have more knowledge, experience, you learn from people, and you have memories.

Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.

I do think there must be some kind of interaction between your living life and the life that goes on from here.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‚I’m a representative.‘

Consider the fellow. He never spends his time telling you about his previous night’s date. You get the idea he has eyes only for you and wouldn’t think of looking at another woman.

It’s absolutely normal that different human beings want to go different ways.

As a young kid, I really wanted to be rich.

A warrior is not a person that carries a gun. The biggest war you ever go through is right between your own ears. It’s in your mind. We’re all going through a war in our mind, and we have to callus our mind to fight that war and to win that war.

When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not. I’m really confused now.

Don’t just let the devil use your mind as a garbage dump.

It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.

I would believe only in a God that knows how to Dance.

Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.

I’m always cast in these strange men… that’s not me, really.

I don’t have to be what you want me to be.