I always believed that when you follow your heart or your gut, when you really follow the things that feel great to you, you can never lose, because settling is the worst feeling in the world.

I’m an introvert somewhat. There could be a room full of people, I’ll go stand in the corner.

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

I think it’s a very good thing to leave your country and look at it from afar.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

I used to stutter really badly. Everybody thinks it’s funny. And it’s not funny. It’s not.

I woke up one day and thought: ‚I want to write a book about the history of my body.‘ I could justify talking about my mother because it was in her body that my body began.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am ‚known for‘ is what I am.

People always say when they meet me that I’m not what they expect. I assume they think I’m this super dark and depressing guy, but I like to channel all of those emotions into my work.

You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

I had a really good childhood up until I was nine, then a classic case of divorce really affected me.

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.

Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice… No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out.

The self is hateful.

One thing I want to make clear, as far as my own rebirth is concerned, the final authority is myself and no one else, and obviously not China’s Communists.

I mean we all need a second chance sometimes.

I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think something’s not good enough, and I won’t stop until I feel like I’ve made it. I’m never satisfied.

The problem with me, as far as getting married and having a family, is that my comedy is so important to me. So I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good a dad as my dad.

Whenever I write a novel, I have a strong sense that I am doing something I was unable to do before. With each new work, I move up a step and discover something new inside me.

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

I worked out early on to give up things I couldn’t do well at all.

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

I’ve never been pregnant, so I just feel God didn’t mean for me to have kids so that everybody else’s children could be mine.

An employer of mine back in the ’80s was kind enough to take me on after a rough patch, and it made a big difference in my life that I knew I was the sort of person who showed up on time. It’s a basic tell of character.

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one.

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.

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

The thing I always say to people is this: ‚If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.‘

I’m very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me. I’m rather surprised at who I am, because I’m actually like my dad!

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

I’m a genetic optimist.

Doing the box set is one of those things where you get to rewrite your own history to some extent. We could take out some of the songs that we felt weren’t as strong as some of the others, so you look better.

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

The reward of suffering is experience.

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

Thoughts are fine when you don’t confuse them with who you are, and then thoughts are not a problem. Thinking is a wonderful tool to create things in this world. It only becomes problematic and a source of suffering when you confuse thinking with who you are.

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you’ve closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

Be happy with being you. Love your flaws. Own your quirks. And know that you are just as perfect as anyone else, exactly as you are.

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.

Without being the most confident person in the world, I think I am the right person for Liverpool.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

I feel that I’ve done what I wanted to do, and that makes me feel fairly content.

What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come… We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life’s hard times.

I haven’t changed at all. I’m the same as when I was 11.

Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

Life in abundance comes only through great love.

Married or single, you sisters possess distinctive capabilities and special intuition you have received as gifts from God. We brethren cannot duplicate your unique influence.

If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.

When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?

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.