I understand aggressiveness in only one way: being prepared to hurt yourself, not someone else.

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

You’re going to go through tough times – that’s life. But I say, ‚Nothing happens to you, it happens for you.‘ See the positive in negative events.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

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

Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

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

I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.

I look at where I’m at today and realize that most of my success is owed to the mentors that was in my life.

We all self-conscious. I’m just the first to admit it.

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.

It’s a very strange thing being recognized or looked upon as someone special.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.

If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.

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.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you.

I’ve never been one to sit back and go, ‚I’d better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don’t want to lose them.‘

I am just one human being.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

The left paw has done me well over the years. I’m not a scientist, I’m a martial artist.

I mean we all need a second chance sometimes.

I’m an emotional person.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

My father probably thought the capital of the world was wherever he was at the time. It couldn’t possibly be anyplace else. Where he and his wife were in their own home, that, for them, was the capital of the world.

I don’t want followers.

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

A shady business never yields a sunny life.

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

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.

I’m concerned that my technical skills have advanced to the point where I can get closer to what I’m aiming for, which is not such a good thing.

When I was writing ‚Kitchen Confidential,‘ I was in my 40s, I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car.

I always wanted a family.

I’ve noticed a terrible thing, which is I will agree to anything if it’s far enough in the future.

I don’t write so much now. I’m getting on 33, pot belly and creeping dementia.

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.

I remember, when I was a young guy in the SEAL teams, I was very afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid or doing dumb things and getting a bad reputation.

I’m my own worst critic, and if I don’t pull off what I think I wanted to do in my head, then I won’t be a happy girl.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.

The roots of the problems we face in the world, in our national life, and in our family and personal lives are spiritual.

Mental toughness is a lifestyle. It’s something that you live every single day of your life. When I was growing up, I was a lazy kid. I was a lazy kid, and everybody goes, ‚How did you get to where you’re at today? How did you get to where you’re running 200 miles at one time in 39 hours? Being so disciplined?‘

A lot of people like to do certain things, but they’re not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything.

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.

Joanne‘ is a progression for me. It was about going into the studio and forgetting that I was famous.

Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

I just feel so much more comfortable and confident every game I play.

Whatever is making you so angry, it’s time for you to give it to God and get over it.

Your emotions are very unstable and should never be the foundation for direction in your life.

My father wasn’t perfect. He had a temper. I took some of that. He would snap, but the older he got, he started calming down. He learned about life, but the thing that he taught my whole family was that family was the most important thing and, no matter what, if a family member needs you, you go and help them out; you get there.

The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.