I like touring extensively because I think the more hours you spend onstage, the more you know who you are onstage.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.

I’m so happy I discovered early how wonderful music makes me feel.

It is important for you to know who you are and who you may become. It is more important than what you do, even as vital as your work is and will be.

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.

It’s very intense to be in front of a live audience. It’s just an amazing experience. It’s dangerous. Everything out there is heightened. The bad stuff is extra-worse. The silences are extra-silent. The good stuff is amazing. It’s electric when you walk out there. For 90 minutes, you’re on this other planet.

I owe the best of myself to geology, but everything it has taught me tends to turn me away from dead things.

The things that transfixed you as a child, that you found most exciting was not a passing fancy, but a message about what you’re supposed to do.

The way I approach this thing, when I started to get my head screwed on straight and really trying to make something of myself as an artist, when I was 19 or 20, it became more about function for me. Like, what is this song doing to you? What is the function of this type of artform? What is it doing?

There are a lot of people who don’t know me and what I am all about.

I wear a hat on stage so that people won’t be blinded by the reflection from my head. Also, if I don’t wear a hat, there’s no way that the hat can be at that level by itself on the stage.

You gotta keep trying to find your niche and trying to fit into whatever slot that’s left for you or to make one of your own.

Man has throughout the ages been seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare – something we call truth or God or reality, a timeless state – something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption.

I created myself. I have taught myself so much.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

Only the shallow know themselves.

I began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when I didn’t write. I started again at 16 and have no idea why, but it was suddenly the only thing I wanted to do.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.

The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man’s own eyes when they look upon his own person.

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

If I wouldn’t have found Courtney, I probably would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle.

I’m first and foremost a writer. I followed my personal legend, my childhood dream of becoming a writer, but I can’t say why I’m one.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

I’ve just tried to grow up in the most natural and gradual process that I possibly can and make choices I feel are right for me and my fans.

This has always been my life and no one else’s, and that’s how it’s always been since the day I came in it.

I always said that I wouldn’t use a teleprompter, and if I start to sing real flat, I’ll hang it up.

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.

I continuously go further and further learning about my own limitations, my body limitation, psychological limitations. It’s a way of life for me.

Testing oneself is best when done alone.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

My act is an exaggeration of a part of me. I’m much more expressive off stage.

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

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.

Single life is so overrated.

I’ve always been a singer. I never really decided I was gonna be a singer. It just kind of – I just sung a lot.

When I was a kid, I never did funny things to get attention. I was never a funny person. I was never, like, ‚Oh, wow. I could say this some day on stage.‘

They would not find me changed from him they knew – only more sure of all I thought was true.

Bob Marley isn’t my name. I don’t even know my name yet.

I’m not lesbian; I’m not bisexual; I’m not straight. I’m just curious.

If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.

I feel the emotion that life conjures up and the songs I write get me closer to my feelings and realising who I am. It’s a natural process.

Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.

To some extent I happily don’t know what I’m doing. I feel that it’s an artist’s responsibility to trust that.

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

People just overshoot trying to find God. They’re going outside and trying everything. They don’t realize that it’s right inside themselves.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. So it’s like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You’d better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that’s really the only unique situation that’s going to be left.

Acting helped me as I was growing up. It helped me learn about myself, helped me travel, helped me understand life, express myself, all those wonderful things. So I’m very, very grateful; it’s a fun job. It’s a luxury.

Many people look at me and think they know me but they don’t at all. This is the real me. I am a humble person, a feeling person. A person who cares about others, who wants to help others.

Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the ‚leaders‘ must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities.

Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be.

I think, when you are growing up, you have to pull apart from what your mother wants or needs. You’ve got to go your own way, and that’s what I did.

When I was 8 years old I became a mute and was a mute until I was 13, and I thought of my whole body as an ear, so I can go into a crowd and sit still and absorb all sound. That talent or ability has lasted and served me until today.

I have had fun being who I became, so to speak.

I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll be a great actress.