I need one of those baby monitors from my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I’m really thinking about.

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.

Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning when first I considered going. Once faced and settled there really wasn’t any good reason to refer to it.

The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion’s roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance.

Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.

One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.

I am sure there’s going to be times when I do things wrong that no one’s going to like and everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish but I know I’m going to go through those times, and it’s just about understanding that that’s going to happen.

Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don’t let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

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

The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

I’ve written all my songs on every single one of my records, and that’s what’s been fun about looking back.

We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.

I go to sleep thinking about my kids being spoiled and I wake up thinking about it.

The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is completely occupied by the images of as many objects as are in front of it.

In one way, I suppose, I have been ‚in denial‘ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.

Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot.

I don’t dabble and spend much mind or time dealing with, I don’t know, people’s perceptions of me. I truly don’t.

If you don’t know your full-throttle history, the whole story of how you came to where you are, it’s kind of hard to put things together.

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good.

I second-guess and overthink and rethink every single thing that I do.

You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.

I think my worst problem is actually living in the moment and understanding everything that’s going on. I feel like I’m in my own bubble.

My thought is me: that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think I cannot keep from thinking.

But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.

Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.

To insult someone we call him ‚bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, ‚human‘ might be the greater insult.

I am whatever you say I am; if I wasn’t, then why would you say I am.

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.

Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.

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.

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

I have never regarded myself as a hero, but Tenzing undoubtedly was.

Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

In this bright future you can’t forget your past.

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.

Observe all men, thyself most.

If some years were added to my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.

I guess I’m living in the present more than the past.

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

The Canteen Boy, the reason you feel bad for him and you can laugh is because he, and I guess a lot of my characters, they don’t notice they’re getting made fun of. So they’ll say something back that’s not that great a quip, but in their mind they won the argument.

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

I’m getting a wrinkle above my eyebrow because I just can’t stop lifting it, and I love that you know.

There’s certainly a side of me that isn’t completely… sane. Or completely ‚even‘ all the time. We all have our dark sides.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don’t mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much?

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

If I relaxed, if I took my foot off the gas, I would probably die.

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

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!