I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.

Instead of blaming everyone and everything else for your problems, pray for God to help you take an inventory of what’s been on your mind so you can think about what you’ve been thinking about.

I’ve always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

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.

Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.

Everything is political. I will never be a politician or even think political. Me just deal with life and nature. That is the greatest thing to me.

I never look at my watch when I’m sketching!

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

None but ourselves can free our minds.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

It’s true my father abused me and didn’t love and protect me the way he should have, and at times it seemed no one would ever help me and it would never end. But God always had a plan for my life, and He has redeemed me.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

Pick the day. Enjoy it – to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come… The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present – and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future.

I don’t want to make money; I want to make a difference.

I like to make people feel happy and superior in their reaction towards my appearance.

I would venture to guess that the biggest reason creative types don’t produce isn’t because they don’t have vision… or talent… in most cases, it’s a lack of discipline.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

Had I been a great athlete, I’m not sure I would have even gone into coaching. I may have turned out feeling that my life ended when my athletic career ended, as happens so many times with various athletes.

The shortest answer is doing the thing.

To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.

But sports carried me away from being in a gang, or being associated with drugs. Sports was my way out.

I’ve always put everybody else’s child first before my own health, before my own outfit, before my own time frame.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

I’m not a natural joiner.

The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.

Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.

Playing Etta James in the movie ‚Cadillac Records‘ really changed me. It was a darker character, and I realized that if anything is too comfortable, I want to run from it. It’s no fun being safe.

The world can criticize me, but l can always criticize it back.

There is one thing that gets you out of bed in the morning, and that is discipline. Because your dreams and your goals are not there waking up for you in the morning.

I haven’t changed at all. I’m the same as when I was 11.

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

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

We’re all insecure, aren’t we? I’m not walking around like I’m macho man or anything.

At first, I was scared to show fear because you can never be sure how people will perceive you. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Now I’ll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever.

Listening to and understanding our inner sufferings will resolve most of the problems we encounter.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one’s key to the experience of others.

People have so many hang-ups about how other people live their lives. People always want to keep you in a little box, or they need to label you and fix you in time and location.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.

Life is about growing and improving and getting better.

You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.

I went through a period when I felt my film characters were having more fun than I was. It might partly explain why I ended up tattooed or doing certain extreme things in my life.

Do I dare set forth here the most important, the most useful rule of all education? It is not to save time, but to squander it.

Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

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.

Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

Don’t ever criticize yourself. Don’t go around all day long thinking, ‚I’m unattractive, I’m slow, I’m not as smart as my brother.‘ God wasn’t having a bad day when he made you… If you don’t love yourself in the right way, you can’t love your neighbour. You can’t be as good as you are supposed to be.

I have discovered that just because we grow weaker physically as we age, it doesn’t mean that we must grow weaker spiritually.

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.

The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

Never confuse motion with action.

I didn’t always have 14,000 people wanting to hang out with me on a Saturday night.

Why regret anything? Where does it get you to regret anything you’ve ever done in your life? It gets you nowhere. It’s a pathetic emotion that you can wallow in.

In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.

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

People make jokes about my bosoms, why don’t they look underneath the breasts at the heart? It’s obvious I’ve got big ones and if people want to assume they’re not mine, then let them.

Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best.

I’ve always written. There’s a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother’s papers were destroyed. I’d written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then.