I feel that sin and evil are the negative part of you, and I think it’s like a battery: you’ve got to have the negative and the positive in order to be a complete person.

I love being busy.

Don’t grow accustomed to living with less, doing less, and being less to the point that you eventually sit back and accept it.

People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.

The world has crafted a beautiful balance of collective action – common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

There are two great forces, God’s force of good and the devil’s force of evil, and I believe Satan is alive and he is working, and he is working harder than ever, and we have many mysteries that we don’t understand.

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.

The single most powerful thing I can be is to be myself.

People don’t usually compliment your character.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.

You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.

Every one of my regrets has produced a song I’m proud of.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear.

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Man is a universe within himself.

A properly balanced story provides an equal representation of the negative and positive attributes of, I could say the world, but it’s actually a being. ‚Harry Potter“s a good example. So Harry’s the hero, right. But he’s tainted with evil. There’s a dark and a light in every bit of that narrative. It’s well balanced.

When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.

I’ve learned that men and women who are living wholehearted lives really allow themselves to soften into joy and happiness. They allow themselves to experience it.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.

I am who I am today because of my mother.

One of my goals from really early on was that if I was ever fortunate enough to be successful in music, I would want to stay the same person and the same songwriter.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

I can’t explain 9/11, except the evil of man.

All my adult life people have been helping me.

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.

I know this sounds strange, but as a kid, I was really shy. Painfully shy. The turning point was freshman year, when I was the biggest geek alive. No one, I mean no one, even talked to me.

Be not a slave of words.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

I would love to continue in music, with writing… but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don’t need to be blonde when I’m 60!

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.

I’m afraid to fail again.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

The advice I’ve been giving to people all my life – that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you; you can’t give up politics, it won’t give you up – was the advice I should have been taking myself.

I want people to draw strength from me.

Me, as a person, I grow. I’m like a chameleon. You know? That is a gift and a curse for me. But more so a gift, because it never puts me in a box.

‚They‘ is… stay away from them, please. There is so many different definitions of ‚they.‘ You might have a personal ‚they.‘ They against you; they want you broken and miserable. They don’t like winners; they don’t like people who’s blessed. So everybody’s got a different ‚they.‘

I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think something’s not good enough, and I won’t stop until I feel like I’ve made it. I’m never satisfied.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.

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.

Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

I realize I don’t do a very good job in keeping up to date, but I try to.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

I admire people who destroy themselves.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

I don’t think I will ever be content. I am somebody who is always hungry.

The real truths of life are never entirely new to you or to anybody because there is a level deep down within you where you already know all the things, all those spiritual truths that you read or hear, and then recognize them. I say ‚recognize‘ because you’re not… it’s not new.

Even though God loves us, we still have a problem: sin. It’s important for us to learn how to confront sin and overcome it, because while God loves sinners, He hates sin. And He hates it because of what it does to us and how it keeps us from the abundant life Jesus died to give us.

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn’t bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn’t have any brains. I didn’t know what I was doing there. That’s why I became an actor.