I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.

I deeply regret any harm, or any perceived harm, that I may have done to anyone by any behaviour of mine.

Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.

Whenever you’re going through a tough time, generally, you become more compassionate, you become softer, you become more thoughtful, kinder. These are all spiritual qualities that will help you to align yourself with God and God consciousness rather than with a split fear-based consciousness.

I feel that sin and evil are the negative part of you, and I think it’s like a battery: you’ve got to have the negative and the positive in order to be a complete person.

In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.

Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I’ve done it all – I’m good. Now, it’s about setting an example for others to follow. I can’t just talk it – I have to live it.

I was not a good student. I did not spend much time at college; I was too busy enjoying myself.

I was raised to be independent.

I went through a lot of battles in high school.

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.

While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.

Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are.

My heroes don’t have anything special. They have something to tell other people but they don’t know how, so they talk to themselves.

I’m reflective only in the sense that I learn to move forward. I reflect with a purpose.

I write songs about stuff that I can’t really get past personally – and then I write a song about it and I feel better.

I have a strong feeling that I shall be glad when I am dead and done for – scrapped at last to make room for somebody better, cleverer, more perfect than myself.

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It’s because I’m not quite an atheist and it worries me. There’s that little bit that holds on: ‚Well, I’m almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.‘

I don’t consider myself to be that credulous.

Whenever you are angry, be assured that it is not only a present evil, but that you have increased a habit.

The first step in a person’s salvation is knowledge of their sin.

You’re going to die. You’re going to be dead. It could be 20 years, it could be tomorrow, anytime. So am I. I mean, we’re just going to be gone. The world’s going to go on without us. All right now. You do your job in the face of that, and how seriously you take yourself you decide for yourself.

Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself.

Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you.

I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

The mind of a 19-year-old is very different from the mind of a 26-year-old. You grow. You get into better relationships. You experience more, meet more people, better people. But when you’re in a dark hole at an earlier point in your life – you write about the mindset you’re in at that moment.

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

I believe that God’s dream is that we be successful in our careers, and that we be able to send our kids to college. I don’t mean that everyone is going to be rich, and I preach a lot on blooming where you’re planted. But I don’t have the mindset that money is a bad thing.

The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

I’m an expert typist. I learned in high school. I would close my eyes and just type without worrying about mistakes. I tried to penetrate my heart, and as I let my thoughts drift, things bubbled up to the surface.

Some like to think that a keen appreciation of art can actually make us better people – more just, more moral, more sensitive, more understanding. Perhaps that is true – in certain rare, isolated cases.

I used to stutter really badly. Everybody thinks it’s funny. And it’s not funny. It’s not.

Delhi means everything to me. This city has given me everything, and I love it.

I know I’m a good professional, I know that no one’s harder on me than myself and that’s never going to change, under any circumstances.

He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

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

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.

Therapy? I don’t need that. The roles that I choose are my therapy.

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?

I enjoy competition. I enjoy challenges. If a challenge is in front of me and it appeals to me, I will go ahead and conquer it.

I’m no leader; I’m a little humble follower.

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

It’s different from being 21 and you think there’s endless amount of opportunities. At 33, the ending is much, much closer.

There’s a gap between what I want to do, what I do on camera, and what gets edited. Right? So the goal is to try and close the gaps. What’s the biggest compliment is if I read a review and it’s exactly what I wrote down in my diary before ever filming it. That’s really cool. That’s the biggest signifier of closing the gaps.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

If you only believe that you’re an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that’s quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.

You can have the platinum album. But, you know, when you still feel like you haven’t quite found your place in the world, it kind of gives a crazy offset.

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

It’s human nature to blame someone else for your shortcomings or upsets.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

Once I realized that right thinking is vital to victorious living, I got more serious about thinking about what I was thinking about, and choosing my thoughts carefully.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the quality it should have.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.