I think that I’ve had a very strange life.

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

You don’t look out there for God, something in the sky, you look in you.

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

Mickey Rourke’s character in ‚The Wrestler‘ – that was my dad, that was my uncles, that was so many members of my family. It was the only thing they knew. And then they would end up wrestling for a hundred bucks, go to autograph signings for two hundred bucks.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

I don’t know what ‚normal‘ means, anyway.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.

Why am I a star? It can’t be because of looks.

I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.

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

I never fall in love.

When you’re young, you keep reading new writers and you keep changing your mind about how you ought to sound.

When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.

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.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

As president, you can get all kinds of advice from all kinds of people. But at the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values and your vision and the life experiences that make you who you are.

When I was two, a dragonfly flew near me. A man knocked it to the ground and trod on it. I remember crying because I’d caused the dragonfly to be killed.

In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.

I kinda live where I find myself.

The ‚soul‘ is one of the words you can use to talk about your innermost being, the essence of who you are.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn’t that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I’d already been translating French poetry, I’d been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went.

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.

My life is real.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

I know this sounds strange, but as a kid, I was really shy. Painfully shy. The turning point was freshman year, when I was the biggest geek alive. No one, I mean no one, even talked to me.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

I no longer feel attracted to the well-made novel. I want to write the story that will zero in and give you intense, but not connected, moments of experience. I guess that’s the way I see life. People remake themselves bit by bit and do things they don’t understand.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

In my relationship with God, I’ve learned that if I follow a ‚formula‘ for how I spend my time with Him, then I’m just accomplishing a checklist of things I feel obligated to do to please Him. This makes my spiritual life more about doing what I need to do to fulfill an obligation than something meaningful.

I’m more of an adventurous type than a relationship type.

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

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

I always knew who I was, and I always ran from my true purpose… I know what my job is. And I always ran from it.

I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don’t recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.

I’m here to spread a message of hope. Follow your heart. Don’t follow what you’ve been told you’re supposed to do.

Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.

You see, I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across – not to just depict life – or criticize it – but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me, you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful.

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.

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

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

You have to be someone.

Only the shallow know themselves.

The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.

There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do – the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.

I thought I would try to be gay for a while, but I’m just more sexually attracted to women. But I’m really glad that I found a few gay friends, because it totally saved me from becoming a monk or something.

I have survivor’s curiosity, I guess.

I always try to be myself. Ever since I was an introverted kid, I’d get on stage and be able to break out of my shell.

Where would I be without baseball? Who am I without baseball?

In order to heal others, we first need to heal ourselves. And to heal ourselves, we need to know how to deal with ourselves.

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

I go to all these photo shoots, and each time I figure out something new about myself and what I want to wear.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

The world around me has changed, and I have learned to adapt but not change. But I’m changing into the woman I am meant to be.

We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts.

Love is an interesting thing. Perhaps I’ve never been in love before – I don’t really know? I think I have. I guess it’s subjective in that way.