I have the problems of, I must confess, old age.

I wish I knew why I am so anguished.

The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was born. These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity can bring diminution – this everlasting living soul, began. My mind loses itself in these depths.

You’re in pretty good shape for the shape you are in.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

Any experience that touches you, in any particular way, is good. It can be a horrible experience.

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.

Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories – and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.

I’m so wrapped up in my work that it’s often impossible to consider other things in my life. My marriage ended in divorce because of this, my relationship with Holly has suffered by this.

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn’t been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that’s really worthwhile.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

The wine of youth does not always clear with advancing years; sometimes it grows turbid.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Naturally, everybody has certain things they wish they hadn’t done in life. They wish they hadn’t kicked their dog when they were ten or something.

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

Nobody expects to trust his body overmuch after the age of fifty.

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

I’m the kind of person who needs to feel like everything happens for a reason. When you date a guy and it goes badly, that’s horrible. But if you can write a song about it, then it was worth it.

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.

Meditation is a great way to keep my body well-centered while juggling shooting schedules and recording sessions.

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.

Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.

As you get older, time speeds up but life slows down.

Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.

I think I could go away tomorrow. I’ve already accomplished something. It’s such a selfish business that sometimes I get sick of myself.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

I don’t think anything about a personal legacy. I mean, those words would never come out of my mouth unless I just repeated them. Those things have never been important to me.

AIDS itself is subject to incredible stigma.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn’t enough and you have to go and get shot or something.

I purposely don’t talk about money, because people are already skeptical about TV preachers. But I do say that I want you to be blessed. To me, prosperity is having health, having great children, having peace, good relationships. It’s not about the money.

If a woman can, by careful selection of a father and nourishment of herself, produce a citizen with efficient senses, sound organs and a good digestion, she should clearly be secured a sufficient reward for that natural service to make her willing to undertake and repeat it.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

There’s no reality except the one contained within us. That’s why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.

If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?

In France there are, I think, less than one per cent of people who are too skinny.

I was always very curious as a young man about why older writers who I met seemed so indifferent to what was going on, whereas I, in my 20s, was reading everything. Everything seemed important. But they were only interested in the writers they admired when they were young, and I didn’t understand it then, but now, now I understand it.

Your timeless self does not age and has no fear of the future. Contemplate your physical self and all its possessions, and practice laughing peacefully at it all.

Proper sleep has helped me get to where I am today as an athlete, and it is something that I continue to rely on every day.

I’ve never been pregnant, so I just feel God didn’t mean for me to have kids so that everybody else’s children could be mine.

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man’s own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.

In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

No one can give you better advice than yourself.

Pride is an independent, me-oriented spirit. It makes people arrogant, rude and hard to get along with. When our heart is prideful, we don’t give God the credit and we mistreat people, looking down on them and thinking we deserve what we have.

I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not. I’m really confused now.

The equal right of all citizens to health, education, work, food, security, culture, science, and wellbeing – that is, the same rights we proclaimed when we began our struggle, in addition to those which emerge from our dreams of justice and equality for all inhabitants of our world – is what I wish for all.

As a kid, I’d go into the bathroom when I was having a tantrum. I’d be in the bathroom crying, studying myself in the mirror. I was preparing for future roles.

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.

If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?

People don’t usually compliment your character.

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

The Public is merely a multiplied ‚me.‘

I’ve always felt that if I examine myself too much, I’ll find out what I know and don’t know, and I’ll burst the bubble. I’ve gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I’d rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.