I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

I was raised to be an independent woman, not the victim of anything.

When you are young you tend to do so many things that are not needed. When you get experience, you know what exactly what works for you and you tend to do things that you want.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

I’m not looking to freak people out – eating rodents or bugs. I don’t do that anymore.

Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems – most life situations are – but find out if you have a problem at this moment. Do you have a problem now?

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

I’m an introvert somewhat. There could be a room full of people, I’ll go stand in the corner.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.

In two decades I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.

It’s not to much fun to know yourself too well or think you do – everyone needs a little conceit to carry them through & past the falls.

When you start to realise how much of what you’ve constructed of yourself is based on deception and lies, that is a horrifying realisation.

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.

I started writing at the kitchen table after midnight. It took ten months to finish that first book; I sent it to a publisher and I got some kind of prize, so it was like a dream – I was surprised to find it happening.

One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.

You can live your life angry, bitter, mad at somebody or even guilty, not letting go of your own mistakes, but you won’t receive the good things God has in store.

Sometimes when you make a film you can go away for three months and then come back and live your life. But this struck a much deeper chord. I don’t have the ability yet to speak about it in an objective.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.

Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it… Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.

It has been hard for me to find it, but I have found love.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

Someone said to me, ‚If fifty percent of the experts in Hollywood said you had no talent and should give up, what would you do?‘ My answer was then and still is, ‚If a hundred percent told me that, all one hundred percent would be wrong.‘

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

Our Creator expects His children everywhere to educate themselves.

How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success.

If my world were to cave in tomorrow, I would look back on all the pleasures, excitements and worthwhilenesses I have been lucky enough to have had. Not the sadness, not my miscarriages or my father leaving home, but the joy of everything else. It will have been enough.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.

I will praise any man that will praise me.

Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.

I feel like I have a job to do, like I constantly have to reinvent myself. The more I up the ante for myself, the better it is in the long run. I try to interact with my fans as much as possible. It’s good that the person I’m being onstage isn’t really an act. It’s really me.

I was born in London in England in 1934. I went through, as a child, the horrors of World War II, through a time when food was rationed and we learned to be very careful, and we never had more to eat than what we needed to eat. There was no waste. Everything was used.

I wouldn’t ever say if you’re having tough times then there must be something wrong with you or your attitude. Life’s a fight. It’s a good fight of faith. I encourage people to stay up, stay hopeful, stay faith-filled.

Never take anything for granted.

No sanction can stand against ignited minds.

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.

I’ve always kinda been a little outcast myself, a little oddball, doin‘ my thing, my own way. And it’s been hard for me to, to be accepted, certainly in the early years of my life.

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.

It’s in the difficult times that we’re growing and you can’t just rebuke everything hard. We’ve got to endure it and fight the good fight of faith and pass the test.

Don’t let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn’t go with it.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.

I’d like to be known for more than being the guy in the big suit.

If you’re not ready for everything, you’re not ready for anything.

All my adult life people have been helping me.

Feeling sorry for ourselves is the most useless waste of energy on the planet. It does absolutely no good. We can’t let our circumstances or what others do or don’t do control us. We can decide to be happy regardless.

No one can resist the idea of a crippled genius.

I’m not this horrible, evil person.

You can either be a host to God, or a hostage to your ego. It’s your call.

If one dream dies, dream another dream. If you get knocked down, get back up and go again.

If we don’t succeed we run the risk of failure.

I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.

There are people out there who hate me and who say I’m arrogant, vain, and whatever. That’s all part of my success. I am made to be the best.