I get naturally uncomfortable when I’m put under a magnifying glass.

My goal was never to make Facebook cool. I am not a cool person.

The truth is, I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let men sometimes fool themselves.

Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves – and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either.

There are so many emotions that you’re feeling, you can get stifled by them if you’re feeling them all at once. What I try to do is take one moment – one simple, simple feeling – and expand it into three-and-a-half minutes.

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.

My ‚fear‘ is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.

The Canteen Boy, the reason you feel bad for him and you can laugh is because he, and I guess a lot of my characters, they don’t notice they’re getting made fun of. So they’ll say something back that’s not that great a quip, but in their mind they won the argument.

All of our problems start in our minds.

For an author, the nice characters aren’t much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They’re doing it for themselves.

Do not think of your faults, still less of other’s faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.

I think life is a matter of choices and that wherever we are, good or bad, is because of choices we make.

Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.

I’m not intelligent. I’m not arrogant. I’m just like the people who read my books. I used to have a jazz club, and I made the cocktails and I made the sandwiches. I didn’t want to become a writer – it just happened.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

The more in harmony with yourself you are, the more joyful you are and the more faithful you are. Faith is not to disconnect you from reality – it connects you to reality.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself.

I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

One of the most important decisions you’ll ever make is choosing the kind of universe you exist in: is it helpful and supportive or hostile and unsupportive? Your answer to this question will make all the difference in terms of how you live your life and what kind of Divine assistance you attract.

Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching, you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence.

I spent most of the early years of my walk with God focused on what was wrong with me. Most of us probably do that, hoping to change ourselves.

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.

I never deny. I never contradict. I sometimes forget.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

There was a while when I was feeling like, ‚Damn, if I’d just been born black, I would not have to go through all this‘.

Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

I’ve learned people are watching, so don’t do nothing stupid.

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.

Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.

Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinion of others.

A daily portion is really all we need. We do not need tomorrow’s supply, for that day has not yet dawned, and its needs are still unborn.

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.

Know that any and all thoughts that you have regarding your own skills, interests, and inclinations are valid. To reinforce the validity of your thoughts, keep them private. Tell yourself that they’re between you and God.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

Be content to seem what you really are.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.

I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.

I owe my solitude to other people.

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.

I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

I tend to overthink things. I’m not the guy who screams ‚This is a world smash!‘ when I finish a song.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

I’m very, very serious – I’m serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be.

Too often we… enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.

You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment.