I let people fill in the blanks on their own. If they want to think about their ex, that’s fine. If they want to think about maybe who one of my exes is, then that’s fine. And it might not be right, because I’m the only one who knows what these songs are really about. It’s the one shred of privacy I have in the matter.

The thing about Jiu Jitsu is it is also not for everybody. It can be very humiliating and humbling. If you have a hard time dealing with the fact that someone smaller than you may be able to tap you out, it is going to be difficult.

Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.

I’ve never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I’ve only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl.

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

I am who I am and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record.

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

I believe time wounds all heels.

If you have fear, you are bound by tradition, you follow some leader or guru. When you are bound by tradition, when you are afraid of your husband or your wife, you lose your dignity as an individual human being.

I didn’t consider myself a fashion designer at all at the time of punk. I was just using fashion as a way to express my resistance and to be rebellious. I came from the country, and by the time I got to London, I considered myself to be very stupid. It was my ambition to understand the world I live in.

Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.

Without being the most confident person in the world, I think I am the right person for Liverpool.

I think all documentaries leave out areas of people’s lives. Which is good. There are areas that need not be explored.

Usually, people have a tendency to be caught in the worries concerning the future or in the regret concerning the past. There is some kind of energy that is pushing them to run, and they are not able to establish themselves in the present moment.

When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.

I think a big test we all face in life on a regular basis is that discouragement test. Life’s not always fair, but I believe if you keep doing the right thing, God will get you to where you are.

I was born with a great gift, and sometimes with that comes a destructive streak.

Frustration is a sign I am acting independently. The more you try your own way, the tighter the doors will stay closed.

Each life makes its own immitation of immortality.

As long as I’m learning something, I figure I’m OK – it’s a decent day.

We all self-conscious. I’m just the first to admit it.

I never want to change so much that people can’t recognize me.

Oh, I’ve always been very… Emotional. ‚Hypersensitive‘ is what they call it, I think.

There’s definitely going to be things that I’m not very good at, things I can improve.

We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

I keep working because I learn something new all the time.

I wrote my first song at 12 and remember someone asking, ‚What were you going through at 12 that you could write about?‘ I get what you’re saying, but 11, 12, 13 were the hardest years of my life. You learn everything. You learn how horrible things feel.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

I just feel so much more comfortable and confident every game I play.

I think that all things, in their way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least.

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.

You’re not going to scare me into being somebody I don’t want to be.

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

I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me.

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.

I have a terrifying long list of fears. Literally everything – diseases, spiders… and people getting tired of me.

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.

When I came into this industry, I was never afraid to be myself.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.

I think it’s very important to cry in the shower and not in front of them. They need to know that everything’s going to be all right, even when you’re not sure it is.

Conscious of not being able to separate myself from my time, I have decided to become part of it.

In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others‘ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

My whole life is a theater piece.

Never marry someone in hope that they’ll change later.

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

I don’t need to be vindicated, and I don’t want attention.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

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?

I woke up one day and thought: ‚I want to write a book about the history of my body.‘ I could justify talking about my mother because it was in her body that my body began.

If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company.

Of all acts of man repentance is the most divine. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.

In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.

None but ourselves can free our minds.