I think I have a dualistic nature.

I believe that having a spiritual life is so important in everybody’s life.

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.

My moms always told me, ‚How long you gonna play the victim?‘ I can say I’m mad and I hate everything, but nothing really changes until I change myself.

We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.

If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?

I’ve always been – you know, my personality is motivating and encouraging. And so I’m just being who God made me to be.

If you were to ask me what I want to do – I don’t want to be a celebrity, I want to make a difference.

I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I’ve never been bored in my life.

I’ve always had a problem with the average macho man – they’ve always been a threat to me.

I’m giving all that I have in this life. I’m opening up my notebook, and I’m saying everything in there out loud.

I wish they would only take me as I am.

I have my flaws too, but I am a professional who doesn’t like to miss or lose.

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

If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?

I still have mixed feelings about what growing up is – this thing that happens to everyone, so I’ve heard.

If someone you know makes a bad decision or uses bad judgment, it doesn’t mean you have to allow that to alter your attitude. Why should you allow anyone else’s bad decisions to send you into a tailspin of misery?

Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do, the library and journalism, those things made me who I am.

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.

I am just one human being.

Yeah, I was a delinquent. It was when I was in the ninth grade. I was doing stupid stuff, and the cops came into the class. I was humiliated more than anything.

How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I’ll say that. Wonder and terror.

No one can give you better advice than yourself.

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.

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

I’m totally myself.

It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Without forgiveness, there’s no future.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

If you’re put on a pedestal, you’re supposed to behave yourself like a pedestal type of person. Pedestals actually have a limited circumference. Not much room to move around.

Teach me to feel another’s woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

For me, being raised in a free America made all the difference.

I don’t do things for the response or for the controversy. I just live my life.

Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides.

I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.

Prejudice is a chain, it can hold you. If you prejudice, you can’t move, you keep prejudice for years. Never get nowhere with that.

When I was younger, I was testing myself and questioning everything, but now it’s less about that and more about these are the years of my life with my family.

I don’t think I am evangelical in my work.

I don’t look at my old work. I mean, they made nice books; the books were made without me, the one from last year and the one from this year. I – personally, I’m not interested in my own past. I’m only interested in today – perhaps tomorrow.

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

Men must know their limitations.

Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history… this is what makes you strong. It’s not looking out that’s going to do that – it’s looking in.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.

I’m just trying to be myself. I’m not trying to be anyone else.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

Stay active. Read the Word. Worship with other believers. Continue to give. Keep learning and growing. Your faith will be unleashed!

This above all; to thine own self be true.

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do.

Silence is a source of great strength.

My philosophy is it’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

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.

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.