I always wonder when it was that I was embraced.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

We all have two lives: an inner life and an outer life. Your inner life is your soul life, which includes your mind, will and emotions. Your outer life is your physical life. And while God cares about every detail of your life, He is more concerned with your inner life than your outer life.

That’s something I think is growing on me as I get older: happy endings.

Delhi means everything to me. This city has given me everything, and I love it.

If I think too hard about a relationship, I’ll talk myself out of it.

You need to understand what works best for your own body.

In the child, consciousness rises out of the depths of unconscious psychic life, at first like separate islands, which gradually unite to form a ‚continent,‘ a continuous landmass of consciousness. Progressive mental development means, in effect, extension of consciousness.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions – Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.

I built a label at the same time I built a career.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

One must marry one’s feelings to one’s beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one’s life.

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.

Songs don’t have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I’ve done is about alienation… about where you fit in society.

I’ve always had a problem with the average macho man – they’ve always been a threat to me.

Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

It is only to the individual that a soul is given.

Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up – they have no holidays.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

Joanne‘ is a progression for me. It was about going into the studio and forgetting that I was famous.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.

Never complain and never explain.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

I don’t regret anything.

Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.

Always fall in with what you’re asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever’s going. Not against: with.

Not being afraid to be wrong – I had to learn how to do that.

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.

Always remember that others may hate you but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

When you are young you tend to do so many things that are not needed. When you get experience, you know what exactly what works for you and you tend to do things that you want.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

Everybody has done something that we wish we didn’t say or do and wish we could take it back.

I’ve always felt that if I examine myself too much, I’ll find out what I know and don’t know, and I’ll burst the bubble. I’ve gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I’d rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.

The world can criticize me, but l can always criticize it back.

I’ve never been one to sit back and go, ‚I’d better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don’t want to lose them.‘

I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one’s nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves.

I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was 23 and the way I handled that.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

Upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.

We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.

I’m just trying to be myself. I’m not trying to be anyone else.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do, the library and journalism, those things made me who I am.

Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.

Honor thy error as a hidden intention.

When I was old enough to change my name, I changed it to Mr. T so that the first word out of someone’s mouth was ‚Mister,‘ a sign of respect.

If I read a book that impresses me, I have to take myself firmly by the hand, before I mix with other people; otherwise they would think my mind rather queer.

The single most powerful thing I can be is to be myself.

‚Perfection‘ to me is, I walk away from a situation and say, ‚I did everything I could do right there. There was nothing more that I could do.‘ I was a hundred percent, like the meter was at the top. There was nothing else I could have done. You know? Like, I worked as hard as I possibly could have. That’s perfection.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

Suppose you could gain everything in the whole world, and lost your soul. Was it worth it?