I feel that I’ve done what I wanted to do, and that makes me feel fairly content.

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.

I have survivor’s curiosity, I guess.

I am sure there’s going to be times when I do things wrong that no one’s going to like and everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish but I know I’m going to go through those times, and it’s just about understanding that that’s going to happen.

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

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.

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

There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

Life opens up opportunities to you, and you either take them or you stay afraid of taking them.

Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.

I made a decision when my father passed away that I was going to be who God made me to be and not try to preach like my father.

All the awards in the world, you can get into all the nightclubs, they’ll send you the nicest clothes. Nothing better than walking into your dad’s restaurant and seeing a smile on his face and knowing that your mom and dad and your sister are real proud of you.

Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.

A child wants things to be a certain way. When you get to be an adult, you just understand that some people are good, some are not, and you can’t be naive.

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.

I think I’m pretty smart. I think I’m pretty clever. But there’s a lot that you hone in on when you finish your education.

Enemies are so stimulating.

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.

My songs are the door to every dream I’ve ever had and every success I’ve ever achieved.

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.

If you don’t know your full-throttle history, the whole story of how you came to where you are, it’s kind of hard to put things together.

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

You don’t have to give way to careless speech or complaining. You don’t have to let your feelings get in the way of what God wants to do in your life.

I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

I don’t regret anything.

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.

My experiences in life are getting bigger and better. The more stuff I do, the more stuff I talk about – having kids, traveling, going through relationship problems, dealing with things in my own family. All that stuff builds character.

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.

Few men would dare to read their own autobiography if all their deeds were recorded in it; few can look back upon their entire career without a blush.

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss.

My overall look on things is a lot more mature than it used to be.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy.

The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

For me, being raised in a free America made all the difference.

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.

I made bad decisions. I’m not denying that I made bad decisions.

Prospering just doesn’t have to do with money.

I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

My moms always told me, ‚How long you gonna play the victim?‘ I can say I’m mad and I hate everything, but nothing really changes until I change myself.

I love the attention but I don’t like too much of it.

I don’t have emotional needs, only physical ones.

I got teased my entire school life. What they were picking on I don’t even understand.

I never do anything that I don’t want to do.

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

I have written a book. This will come as quite a shock to some. They didn’t think I could read, much less write.

The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.

One thing I want to make clear, as far as my own rebirth is concerned, the final authority is myself and no one else, and obviously not China’s Communists.

The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.

I always had faith in my creative capacity.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.