I don’t see myself in terms of artifice. I see myself as a real person who chooses to live my life in an open way – artistically.

I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things.

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.

I’m mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it’s the only place where I’m happy.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

I talk about myself in the third person all the time. I don’t live my life in the way someone like you does. I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans.

I had a lovers quarrel with the world.

Old is authentic. Old is genuine. Old is valuable.

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person.

I can’t very well be teaching one way and living my life another way. What I do in life must be consistent with the things I say. And the same goes for you.

I think I had a mild case of Asperger’s as a younger guy, but that typically just wears off after a while.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.

I never wanted to look pretty on stage and sing about something we’ve all heard about before.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

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

In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.

Sometimes you have to take two steps back to take ten forward.

I wanted to write.

Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment you can grow more surely toward the stars.

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.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

People make jokes about my bosoms, why don’t they look underneath the breasts at the heart? It’s obvious I’ve got big ones and if people want to assume they’re not mine, then let them.

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.

Most of us aren’t defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.

People have so many hang-ups about how other people live their lives. People always want to keep you in a little box, or they need to label you and fix you in time and location.

I don’t mind telling a dark side.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

By indignities men come to dignities.

I was in my late thirties when my eyes were opened to truth in God’s Word that showed me I wasn’t living the abundant life Jesus died for me to have. I had a very negative mindset and was miserable most of the time because of the abuse I had experienced throughout my childhood.

Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.

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

What nourishes me also destroys me.

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.

The fact is I am not having sex. But I feel absolutely ripe for the, what would you say? plucking?

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man’s lack of faith in his true Self.

I deeply regret any harm, or any perceived harm, that I may have done to anyone by any behaviour of mine.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

I am criticised for not celebrating my goals enough. I am very happy from within, very calm. I just don’t celebrate. I celebrate inside.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.

I don’t think I’m such an amazing person who needs to be written about.

If you’re going to be a winner in life, you have to constantly go beyond your best.

Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

Now that I understand that I’m an addict, I definitely have compassion for my mother. I get it.

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

Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.

First, I’m trying to prove to myself that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll convince myself that I’m an actress.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant.

I’ve had no contact with my daughter for years. That’s her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don’t want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.