I came up from a difficult background.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

Everybody has a purpose.

If you were to ask me what I want to do – I don’t want to be a celebrity, I want to make a difference.

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.

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.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.

For me, it’s about the way I carry myself and the way I treat other people. My relationship and how I feel about God and what He does for me, is something deeply personal. It’s where I came from, my family, I was brought up in a religious household and that’s very important to me.

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

When I inspire myself, I want to spread the word because its important to be healthy. I don’t think they’re teaching us enough about that. I think we should eat better and exercise. Look who’s saying that – a guy who was 300 pounds – but I’m doing a lot better than I used to. I’m letting people know its important because it makes you feel better.

To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.

Don’t get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that – if you dare. But get older because it’s fun!

People in tough times – it doesn’t mean they don’t have a great attitude.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

When I say to you, there is nobody like me, and there never was, that is a statement I want every woman to feel and make about themselves.

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.

If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don’t have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don’t have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

It’s like a jar of salad dressing sitting on a shelf… most of the seasoning settles to the bottom of the bottle. But when you shake that bottle up, all the ingredients mix together and then the dressing can add flavor to a salad. In the same way, we can stir ourselves up and regain the reverence, respect and awe we once had for the Lord.

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.

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.

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

I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way, but if I have changed even one life for the better, I haven’t lived in vain.

I’ve always felt heroic about my life… As a child, I remember little girls in the playground moaning about how boys could do more than they could. I didn’t think that was the case at all. My parents didn’t treat me as a girl.

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.

The question of sexual dominance can exist only in the nightmare of that soul which has armed itself, totally, against the possibility of the changing motion of conquest and surrender, which is love.

Only the insecure strive for security.

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.

I’m no genius.

In retrospect, I can see I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

I’m the type person, my safe place to be emotional is the booth.

I have discovered that just because we grow weaker physically as we age, it doesn’t mean that we must grow weaker spiritually.

I’m not resigned, but I’m realistic too. The statistics in my case are very poor. Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long. And the other wager is, the part of the wager, it’s a certainty you’ll have a terrible time and you may wish you were dying because it’s an awful process.

My work is the only ground I’ve ever had to stand on. To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation, but I’m working on the foundation.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one’s key to the experience of others.

Nothing’s ever easy as long as you go on living.

It was weird to be married; you kind of lose your identity. You’re suddenly somebody’s wife. And you’re like, ‚Oh, I’m half of a couple now. I’ve lost me.‘

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.

The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there… and still on your feet.

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

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.

I always try to be myself. Ever since I was an introverted kid, I’d get on stage and be able to break out of my shell.

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.

The highest reward that God gives us for good work is the ability to do better work.

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career: ‚You never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.‘

Relationships are the hallmark of the mature person.

I don’t want to just revolve. I want to evolve. As a man, as a human, as a father, as a lover.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

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.

You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.

The people of Northern Ireland have sorted out my whole life.

Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much?

Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few stones upon it.

I am a big believer in education, because when I grew up in Austria – when I grew up in Austria I had a great education. I had great teachers.

Serious illness doesn’t bother me for long because I am too inhospitable a host.