I used to worry about every little thing, trying to figure out every problem. Well, I realize now how foolish that was. I was no more in control of my life than the man on the moon.

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.

Great is the hand that holds dominion over man by a scribbled name.

I’m always interested in what you can do with technology that people haven’t thought of doing yet.

Entrepreneurs are natural problem-solvers, which means that we always have ideas for new businesses popping into our heads. Having a lot of options is great, but sometimes it can be hard to focus on one when you are keen to move onto the next.

I think what’s important is for us to decipher what is honest and what is dishonest and be accepting of those things and not operating from fear.

Find out who you are. And do it on purpose.

People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.

Something I’ve realized lately, to my shock, is that I am an optimist, in that I think humans are almost infinitely capable of self-change and self-modification, and that we really can build the future that we want if we’re smart about it.

Many people, especially young people, would like to be more independent and on their own. But it is very difficult and they suffer from feelings of isolation. I think that is one reason why young readers support my work.

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.

I had to come from something, come from a place that was negative and positive but the majority of it is a negative place.

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.

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

I’m afraid to fail again.

Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there’s time, the Bastard Time.

Most of us aren’t defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.

Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.

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 don’t think I’m such an amazing person who needs to be written about.

I thought I would be a guy on the radio.

I think the best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I’ve got Alzheimer’s.

Some people would like me to be round again.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

As you think, so shall you become.

I used to pray that God would make me a great athlete, and He never did.

I’ve been running a full marathon every year for more than 20 years, and my record is getting worse. Getting older, getting worse. It’s natural.

All through my writing life, I’ve had this impulse to write autobiographical works.

I found it hard to be young. When I was married in my twenties, I hated being regarded as ‚the little wife.‘ You don’t know what it was like then! I’d never even written a cheque. I had to ask my husband for money for groceries.

Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle, you are equipped with the basic means of salvation.

First, I’m trying to prove to myself that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll convince myself that I’m an actress.

So many people are looking at what’s wrong, and I try to encourage them to look at what’s right in their life. A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

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.

Vanity is but the surface.

Mine is better than ours.

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.

All ways of living can be sanctified, and for each individual, the ideal way is that to which our Lord leads him through the natural development of his tastes and the pressure of circumstances.

When you are angry or frustrated, what comes out? Whatever it is, it’s a good indication of what you’re made of.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

O, had I but followed the arts!

I used to get the feeling, and sometimes I still get it, that sometimes I was fooling somebody; I don’t know who or what, maybe myself.

You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.

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.

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you’ve closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.

The true identity theft is not financial. It’s not in cyberspace. It’s spiritual. It’s been taken.

It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.

When one has not had a good father, one must create one.

God has his plans and his reasons. Sometimes we are supposed to go through things so that we learn lessons.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

I always wonder when it was that I was embraced.

I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.

I’ve learned a lot since I was a new mother. My approach to struggle and shame now is to talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love and reach out to tell your story.

There are massive efforts on the part of the internet’s corporate owners to try to direct it to become a technique of marginalisation and control.

I imagine I will be less involved in film and be focused more on family and foreign affairs.

Men must know their limitations.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were.