I am not handsome or sexy. Of course, it’s not like I am hopeless.

It takes more than just a good looking body. You’ve got to have the heart and soul to go with it.

I change during the course of a day. I wake and I’m one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I’m somebody else.

Failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.

Sometimes I feel my whole life has been one big rejection.

Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he’s well dressed. There ain’t much credit in that.

The day you stop doing the small things is the day you think you’re above everybody else.

I had my moments of being humiliated, and then I had moments of doing something humiliating. I’m glad I lived out both roles.

My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

Whatever role I play is a positive role; it’s a strong role. Never negative.

I’ve never lived my life in the opinion of others. I believe I’m a good person. I believe I’m a good mom. But that’s for my kids to decide, not for the world.

At one time, I was very angry. I even treated fashion like a kind of crusade: you were either with us or against us, that kind of feeling. Now I know we need ideas, not kicking down a door.

A career is born in public – talent in privacy.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.

Being a full human being is difficult, frightening, and problematical.

I used to worry about every little thing, trying to figure out every problem. Well, I realize now how foolish that was. I was no more in control of my life than the man on the moon.

I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn’t care for it in other people either.

People don’t usually compliment your character.

Maybe other people will try to limit me but I don’t limit myself.

I’m not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.

Hollywood is not suited for me, and I am not suited for it.

She is a peacock in everything but beauty.

The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.

In my case Pilgrim’s Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

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.

Don’t just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

I suppose for a very long time I’ve been trying to understand how it is that people might make sense out of their lives and make meaning and make their lives meaningful in the face of the trouble that life brings.

I never hold a grudge.

Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.

When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.

Never complain. Never explain.

I made my fair share of mistakes.

You might win some, you might lose some. But you go in, you challenge yourself, you become a better man, a better individual, a better fighter.

In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.

What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.

We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our education system.

It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

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.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

Many people, especially young people, would like to be more independent and on their own. But it is very difficult and they suffer from feelings of isolation. I think that is one reason why young readers support my work.

I used to have nightmares that they would put ‚He played Ted‘ on my tombstone.

People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

Concentration is one of the happiest things in my life.

Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn’t.

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.

Sports are such a great teacher. I think of everything they’ve taught me: camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.

Well, I’m in my 60s now. I finally look it, I think. People until I was 60 would always say they thought I looked younger, which I think, without flattering myself, I did, but I think I certainly have, as George Orwell says people do after a certain age, the face they deserve.

I’ve never been an intellectual but I have this look.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.