I wanted to imbue Ziggy with real flesh and blood and muscle, and it was imperative that I find Ziggy and be him.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?

The age in which we live, this non-stop distraction, is making it more impossible for the young generation to ever have the curiosity or discipline… because you need to be alone to find out anything.

I am getting to the point where the only love worth being in is the love worth singing about.

Bob Marley isn’t my name. I don’t even know my name yet.

I came to China to follow my star and to steep myself in the raw regions of the universe.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

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.

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.

Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets.

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

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

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.

I don’t blame the average seventeen-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout. I understand that. And maybe when they grow up a little bit, they’ll realize there’s more things to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously.

The little man is still a man.

I wear the national dress because it is the most natural and the most becoming for an Indian.

I’m not who people expect me to be. I’m not Henry Kissinger.

If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‚em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

I don’t know that you can put a label on growth. I’m just me.

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

There are some teams and logos you see, no matter where you are in the world, and you know exactly who they are and what they mean.

I’m really trying to dredge up what one might call intellectual and moral material. For example, when do you realize that you are an American? What age does that happen to you? When do you realize what religion your parents practice? When does it all become conscious? I was interested in exploring all of that.

Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.

No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style. Rock is to dress up to.

Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win.

I try never to wear my own clothes, I pretend I’m someone else.

To me, the black black woman is our essential mother, the blacker she is the more us she is and to see the hatred that is turned on her is enough to make me despair, almost entirely, of our future as a people.

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

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

Men are only as great as they are kind.

In the West, as well as some other parts of the world, the personal sense of ego tends to predominate, whereas in other areas, there is a more collective sense of ego. This collective ego emphasizes the ‚we‘ rather than the ‚I.‘

I’ve always been a singer. I never really decided I was gonna be a singer. It just kind of – I just sung a lot.

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner.

When there’s justice and change, you start to see the cleansing of the soul, and that is what I want for people, and I hope it’s okay for me to say those things.

We are going to transform Britain’s rail system from the worst in the world to the best. If you can do a few things like that, when the body gives out, you can say you’ve lived a good life.

If you change and adapt your persona, you are seen as inauthentic; if you stay the angry young man, you fade from attention or seem tiresome.

I don’t see myself as a pop artist. Like, when you hear ‚pop,‘ you’re like, ‚Oh, bubblegum, jumpy little girly stuff,‘ and I feel like, ‚Uh-uh. That’s not me.‘

Developing nations want to become developed nations.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever will be born must destroy a world.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

I specifically did not read other First Ladies‘ books, because I didn’t want to be influenced by how they defined the role. I knew that I would have to find this role – very uniquely and specifically to me and who I was.

Sometimes, you might meet somebody that you love that’s turning into a ‚they.‘ My key is invite them to Miami and take them to the ocean and let them jump off the boat in the ocean, on the sand bar, and cleanse off and pray and then go take a shower, and hopefully the ‚they‘ is out of you.

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

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

Everywhere I go, the kids call me ‚the book lady.‘ The older I get, the more appreciative I seem to be of the ‚book lady‘ title. It makes me feel more like a legitimate person, not just a singer or an entertainer. But it makes me feel like I’ve done something good with my life and with my success.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

Man has throughout the ages been seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare – something we call truth or God or reality, a timeless state – something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption.

Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.

I guess if I’m a product, either you’re chocolate, you’re vanilla or you’re butterscotch. You can’t be all three.

We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.

The question isn’t, ‚What do we want to know about people?‘, It’s, ‚What do people want to tell about themselves?‘

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

I went from being the Terminator to being the governator.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.