I hated to be treated as a child. I thought it was the worst situation.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

I mean… in life… what relationship is easy?

You can change your world by changing your words… Remember, death and life are in the power of the tongue.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.

Women have a certain sexuality, and I think their bodies are beautiful, and I’m not embarrassed to explore that in a film. But there are things you get offered that are vulgar and violent – just like there’s a side of me that’s vulgar and violent.

The devil is a peace stealer, and he works hard to set us up to get upset. But we can learn how to change our approach so we don’t live upset all of the time. And Jesus gives us the best example to follow.

I’ve used my femininity and my sexuality as a weapon and a tool… but that’s just natural.

Some days I totally appreciate everything that’s happening to me, and some days I feel everyone’s waiting for me to mess up.

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.

Most of us are raised to believe we are ordinary. The anchor of the universe is present in every child. A parent only needs to guide and step aside and let them fulfill their dharma. Help children remember that they can do or be anything.

I never looked at my mantel and envisioned an MVP trophy sitting there. This is pretty crazy.

I was a kind of hyper-intense person in my twenties and very impatient.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

A strong man doesn’t have to be dominant toward a woman. He doesn’t match his strength against a woman weak with love for him. He matches it against the world.

I cry so much less than I used to. I used to be one of the most teary people.

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

You don’t sign up for a divorce when you get married. It’s very painful. But it’s taught me a great deal about myself.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

If there are people you haven’t forgiven, you’re not going to really awaken. You have to let go.

I’m a can-do girl.

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

I don’t want followers.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I’ve done it all – I’m good. Now, it’s about setting an example for others to follow. I can’t just talk it – I have to live it.

I like to recede away from classifications. You might say that indicates a fundamental lack of commitment. I suppose that’s true to some degree.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

Life cannot be without relationship, but we have made it so agonizing and hideous by basing it on personal and possessive love. Can one love and yet not possess? You will find the true answer not in escape, ideals, beliefs but through the understanding of the causes of dependence and possessiveness.

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.

Make bold choices and make mistakes. It’s all those things that add up to the person you become.

From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That’s what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

It’s the journey of self, I guess. You start with this kind of loner, outside guy, which a lot of people can relate to, and he goes out into the world.

Somewhere deep down there’s a decent man in me, he just can’t be found.

It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.

Our necessities never equal our wants.

I’m fat, but I’m thin inside… there’s a thin man inside every fat man.

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.

I use a stream-of-consciousness approach; if you don’t censor yourself, you end up with what you’re most concerned about, but you haven’t filtered it through your conscious mind. Then you craft it.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

No matter what, people grow. If you chose not to grow, you’re staying in a small box with a small mindset. People who win go outside of that box. It’s very simple when you look at it.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

Custom reconciles us to everything.

I think and that is all that I am.

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

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

A smart girl leaves before she is left.

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

We’re all insecure, aren’t we? I’m not walking around like I’m macho man or anything.

If you were the President of the United States or the Queen of England – you couldn’t have a person who would be more protective than my mother was for me. Which meant really that I could dare to do all sorts of things.

Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.

How one life turns out is not dependent on what people do to us or what they don’t do for us.

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

If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.