I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.

I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.

I’m constantly thinking.

After the first day of practice, there’s not one guy who’s playing at 100 percent or who feels great. Sometimes, getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth is the hardest part of the day – it just hurts.

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

I’m perpetually lonely.

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

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

If a man be gloomy let him keep to himself. No one has the right to go croaking about society, or what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?

When I take my kid to school, all the parents stop and stare.

I’m sorry my existence is not very noble or sublime.

When I was a child, there’s one thing I said: ‚I never want to be alone.‘ That’s what I would say. I don’t want to be alone.

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.

In football, I don’t have a lot of friends. The people who I really trust, there are not many… Most of the time, I’m alone.

Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work… men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.

Honestly, I’ve been thinking lately about how boring I am. When I do get time to myself, I watch TV.

There are some Christian people who taste and see and enjoy religion in their own souls, and who get at a deeper knowledge of it than books can ever give them, though they should search all their days.

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

I learned to fly a few years ago in England. It’s the only place I’m completely alone – up in the air, detached from everything.

I kinda live where I find myself.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

No, it’s not a very good story – its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.

Being a full human being is difficult, frightening, and problematical.

To observations which ourselves we make, we grow more partial for th‘ observer’s sake.

There are women who can make you feel more with their bodies and their souls, but these are the exact women who will turn the knife into you right in front of the crowd. Of course, I expect this, but the knife still cuts.

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

I can never say ‚why‘ about anything I do. I suppose I can say ‚how‘ and ‚when‘ and ‚what.‘ But ‚why‘ is impenetrable to me.

I get up every morning and say, ‚Father, give me strength today, not strength so I can lift 500 pounds, but give me strength, Lord, so when I speak, my words might motivate, might inspire somebody, Lord, when they see me, let them see you. When they hear me, Lord, let them hear you. In your holy name I pray.‘

Every time somebody speaks of my honesty, there is someone who quivers inside me.

Most of the time I spend when I get up in the morning is trying to figure out what is going to happen.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

If I think too hard about a relationship, I’ll talk myself out of it.

I don’t have an alarm clock. If someone needs to wake me up, then I have my BlackBerry next to me.

Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can. Always stay near me, for tomorrow I will have much to do and more than I ever had, and tomorrow blood will leave my body above the breast.

I love to be alone, and I did as a child as well, especially if I was outside.

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.

Only the shallow know themselves.

Thought can be so seductive and hypnotic that it absorbs your attention totally, so you become your thoughts.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

Many years ago, I concluded that a few hair shirts were part of the mental wardrobe of every man. The president differs from other men in that he has a more extensive wardrobe.

Lots of songs aren’t even from my experiences, but they’re about accepting… the dark things about yourself.

I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?

Hermits have no peer pressure.

I am alone; I am always alone no matter what.