I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

Transformation literally means going beyond your form.

I realized the other day that I’ve lived in New York longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

No driver is perfect.

It’s very rare that you get a director that lets you be creative and bring what you feel your character should do or should be.

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

To be a monk is to have time to practice for your transformation and healing. And after that to help with the transformation and healing of other people.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

I notice that my characters go out to dinner and have fun and take these great trips, but I spend so much time on their lives, I don’t have much of a personal life of my own. I have to sort of remember to fill out that little notebook on me.

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.

There is no way to prosperity, prosperity is the way.

Stupidly it should not be. It should be also nice. One must get along with that. Is however not necessary.

Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to burn incense.

An employer of mine back in the ’80s was kind enough to take me on after a rough patch, and it made a big difference in my life that I knew I was the sort of person who showed up on time. It’s a basic tell of character.

I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

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

Never marry someone in hope that they’ll change later.

I’m very serious about no alcohol, no drugs. Life is too beautiful.

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

I don’t have the best track record with quotes.

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

Growing old has been the greatest surprise of my life.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

I can’t do nothing just a little.

We need enlightenment, not just individually but collectively, to save the planet. We need to awaken ourselves. We need to practice mindfulness if we want to have a future, if we want to save ourselves and the planet.

In order to have friends, you must first be one.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it’s at the end of your arm, as you get older, remember you have another hand: The first is to help yourself, the second is to help others.

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

Why go through life if you’re not going to challenge yourself?

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

I came up from a difficult background.

Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

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

I’m no genius.

I don’t like it when people who are young act like they’re 40. That’s taking too much on. Putting up a shield and trying to act like you’re so mature or whatever – I don’t try to act mature. Some people might say I’m mature for my age, but it’s not something I’m trying to do, you know? I’m just me.

I can’t jump the highest. I’m obviously not the biggest, not the strongest.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

He that does good to another does good also to himself.

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

My life is my message.

I don’t live in the past at all; I’m always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind.

It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.

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.

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

I have had fun being who I became, so to speak.

You can never get enough of what you don’t want.

Never elated when someone’s oppressed, never dejected when another one’s blessed.

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.

It’s amazing if you just listen to people. They tell you all the time things that you can do for them, without even realizing what they’re doing. I’ve learned to take notice of those things and if it’s something that I feel God wants me to do, then I try to do that to add joy to their life.

I grow as many of our vegetables as I can, because my granddad was a professional gardener, and it’s in the blood.