I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

So many people are looking at what’s wrong, and I try to encourage them to look at what’s right in their life. A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

There’s something about being in front of a live audience that’s fun. It’s a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can’t get it anywhere else. And I’ve been doing it since I was 23, so it’s part of my being – it’s part of my fabric as a person.

I don’t have the best track record with quotes.

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

It’s getting harder to make decisions to just want to do something to work… I’m trying to find things that are extremely challenging or mean something to me deeply.

We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it’s a continuing choice.

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‚I’m a representative.‘

A President’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.

It’s easy to forget who you are.

So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

It’s not called quitting if you quit while you ahead. It’s about being aware and being strategic enough to know that you got to get out the pool at some point. You got to put your clothes back on and dry off.

People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.

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.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn’t poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.

I’m not the same man I used to be, I’m not out hell-raising, stuff like that. I am a changed man.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.

Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.

I kinda live where I find myself.

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

We forge the chains we wear in life.

If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

Sometimes when you make a film you can go away for three months and then come back and live your life. But this struck a much deeper chord. I don’t have the ability yet to speak about it in an objective.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America’s really large shadow and that’s not all that bad.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one.

Chaos is a friend of mine.

Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.

All of our problems start in our minds.

When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.

I’m almost like three people. There’s me the, Dolly, the person. There’s me, the star. And then there’s me, the manager.

If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

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

I think there are a number of things that you can do to encourage your kids‘ dreams, but I do believe in speaking by experience of having a lot of help along the way, stumbling in the past. We’ve all stumbled, and we certainly all deserve to get up and walk again.

Mothers and daughters generally have fairly complex relationships, and ours was made much more so by Mother’s illness. She had Parkinson’s disease, which was not diagnosed for a long time… All that made me very self-protective, because for one thing, I didn’t want to get trapped.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

I would like to fly in space. Absolutely. That would be cool. I used to just do personally risky things, but now I’ve got kids and responsibilities, so I can’t be my own test pilot. That wouldn’t be a good idea. But I definitely want to fly as soon as it’s a sensible thing to do.

He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.

Quitting is the easiest thing to do.

When I was writing ‚Kitchen Confidential,‘ I was in my 40s, I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

Around every corner, always protect the engine that powers you.

I believe enlightenment or revelation comes in daily life. I look for joy, the peace of action. You need action. I’d have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.

I grew up as this very carefree, happy kid then things turned darker for me. Maybe it was because I saw that the world wasn’t as happy a place as I had hoped it would be for me.

To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

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.

Love is a better teacher than duty.