I don’t look at my old work. I mean, they made nice books; the books were made without me, the one from last year and the one from this year. I – personally, I’m not interested in my own past. I’m only interested in today – perhaps tomorrow.

I think my worst problem is actually living in the moment and understanding everything that’s going on. I feel like I’m in my own bubble.

Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the mass itself.

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.

Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to feel discomfort. So the whole time, we’re living our lives in a very comfortable area. There’s no growth in that.

In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.

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

I don’t think that much about my relationship with my mother and what it did to me. I sometimes feel terrible regret about her, what her life must have been like. Often, when I’m enjoying something, I think of how meager her rewards were and how much courage, in a way, she needed to go on living.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can’t find.

There’s definitely going to be things that I’m not very good at, things I can improve.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.

Choose people who lift you up.

I was ironing my own clothes when I was 11 years old. My mental strength goes back to those days.

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.

Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

My main goal is to be a self-made man and have control over what’s mine.

Once you begin to fall off the track and believe you breathe different air to everyone else, you’re doomed; you’re finished.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

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.

As a kid, I’d go into the bathroom when I was having a tantrum. I’d be in the bathroom crying, studying myself in the mirror. I was preparing for future roles.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

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 always try to do as much as I can do. I’m never a person that does not enough, because I’d regret not doing enough and think I probably could have done more. I probably go too far and have to reel myself back in, which works in some things, and other things it doesn’t work.

Peace begins with a smile.

Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

The Sisters of Notre Dame at St. Aloysius Grade School influenced my life tremendously. This was due to the fact that they encouraged you always to make sure that God is the focus of your life, and they didn’t allow you to do anything except to the very best of your ability.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

As a young kid, I really wanted to be rich.

Every movie I make teaches me something. That’s why I keep making them.

The true identity theft is not financial. It’s not in cyberspace. It’s spiritual. It’s been taken.

The more a person seeks security, the more that person gives up control over their life.

We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.

I am in my own head most of the time.

I love my friends and my past, and it’s made me who I am.

Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems – most life situations are – but find out if you have a problem at this moment. Do you have a problem now?

Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That’s not a guess, it’s a guarantee. With pride, it’s not a matter of ‚if‘ we will fall, but ‚when.‘ There are no exceptions.

People will try to bring you down, but you gotta go up.

I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.

And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.

I like to let things breathe.

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

In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

I don’t know what drives me to succeed.

I went through a lot of battles in high school.

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

If I can be a leader, I will.

I think I should learn French and be a better cook – basic, really good life stuff.

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.

A shady business never yields a sunny life.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

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

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, ‚Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.‘

Whenever you give up something, you must replace it with something.