Had I been a great athlete, I’m not sure I would have even gone into coaching. I may have turned out feeling that my life ended when my athletic career ended, as happens so many times with various athletes.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

I think the best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I’ve got Alzheimer’s.

You can’t do something forever.

The older you get, the better you get.

Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in. Even if you’re feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.

He who knows himself is enlightened.

I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

Success is only meaningful and enjoyable if it feels like your own.

You may make some mistakes – but that doesn’t make you a sinner. You’ve got the very nature of God on the inside of you.

The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.

I was asked to act when I couldn’t act. I was asked to sing ‚Funny Face‘ when I couldn’t sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn’t dance – and do all kinds of things I wasn’t prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.

When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.

A shady business never yields a sunny life.

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

It’s easy to forget who you are.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.

You can’t go backward in life.

Guarding your heart and protecting your dignity are a little bit more important than clarifying the emotions of someone who’s only texting you back three words. I’ve learned that from trying to figure out people who don’t deserve to be figured out.

It’s hard to be clear about who you are when you are carrying around a bunch of baggage from the past. I’ve learned to let go and move more quickly into the next place.

Most of my young years were spent under the boots of the military.

My fans saw me get engaged, saw me make that woman my wife, me having kids, me divorcing, me talking about divorce before the divorce, me talking about my kids‘ reaction to that divorce.

I used to get into a lot of fights.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

I am trying to find myself. Sometimes that’s not easy.

Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

Find out who you are. And do it on purpose.

As much as it might look like, to someone else, that I’m successful, I never feel like I’m anywhere. The further I go, I still feel equally further from my eventual goal. Because as I grow, I get more goals. I’m never content.

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

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.

A lot of times, people feel that if they forgive the person who hurt them, then they will continue to take advantage of them or not take responsibility for what they did wrong.

You can be obsessed with the bad things people say and the good things; either way, you’re obsessed with yourself, and I’m not – you can become unhinged so easily.

My work is about my life, and what I want to do with it.

Your entire life only happens in this moment. The present moment is life itself. Yet, people live as if the opposite were true and treat the present moment as a stepping stone to the next moment – a means to an end.

I don’t look at myself as a commodity, but I’m sure a lot of people have.

We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

I’m actually a very honest person, and sometimes I end up like, ‚Man, I said too much.‘ It’s hard for me not to tell the truth when you ask me.

I’m not convinced that women have the education or the sense of their own history enough or that they understand the cruelty of which men are capable and the delight that many men will take in seeing you choose to chain yourself – then they get to say ‚See, you did it yourself.‘

If you’re serious, you really understand that it’s important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you’re the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you’re funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.

The deepest desire of the human spirit is to be acknowledged.

I think it’s my responsibility, as a person of influence… to sometimes try to do what I can.

Frustration is a sign I am acting independently. The more you try your own way, the tighter the doors will stay closed.

If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.

Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.

Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it.

I think it is the height of ignorance to believe that the sexual act is an independent function necessary like sleeping or eating. Seeing, therefore, that I did not desire more children, I began to strive after self-control. There was endless difficulty in the task.

I feel real good because it’s about representing the young world and how to uplift each other and how to push us to be greater and make sure we don’t fall or get trapped or get in trouble, you know what I mean. Stay focused, you know what I mean.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

I can’t tell anybody else how to run their life or their business, but I really believe I’ve got a good bead on myself.

Timidity makes a person modest. It makes him or her say, ‚I’m not worthy of being written up in the record of deeds in heaven or on earth.‘ Timidity keeps people from their good. They are afraid to say, ‚Yes, I deserve it.‘

If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person.

We are all at times unconscious prophets.

The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.

Indeed, it is as important to learn how to receive a blessing as it is to be willing to give one.