I was ashamed to admit I was hipped to the idea of acting. That’s why I started in with the props.

A man who is not afraid is not aggressive, a man who has no sense of fear of any kind is really a free, a peaceful man.

Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.

He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

My message isn’t perfectly defined. I have, as a human being, fallen to peer pressure.

I’ve always felt that if I examine myself too much, I’ll find out what I know and don’t know, and I’ll burst the bubble. I’ve gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I’d rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it.

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.

When you look at the sun during your walking meditation, the mindfulness of the body helps you to see that the sun is in you; without the sun there is no life at all and suddenly you get in touch with the sun in a different way.

I’d like to believe that the people that have supported me in my work or identified with me in films, the people that feel they know me, they do and they don’t have misconceptions – they understand. I believe that.

I had a period in my life where I decided that I would never be bored again and that, if I had any free time at all, I would make plans, and I would always be doing things. It actually was great for a year or so, but then I lost all of my friends.

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

I know who I am, I know what I can and can’t do. I know what I will and won’t do. I know what I’m capable of and I don’t agree to do things that I don’t think I can pull off.

It’s much more fun to play something you’re nothing like than what you are… It’s much easier to hide yourself in a character.

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

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives… inside ourselves.

Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

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

I don’t need to be vindicated, and I don’t want attention.

Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren’t any other people living in the world.

I’m trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It’s so easy to get turned.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

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 thank God I’m in a position where I can pick and choose – there are some roles I don’t play.

I hesitate to use a pathologizing label, but underneath the so-called narcissistic personality is definitely shame and the paralyzing fear of being ordinary.

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

Thoughts are fine when you don’t confuse them with who you are, and then thoughts are not a problem. Thinking is a wonderful tool to create things in this world. It only becomes problematic and a source of suffering when you confuse thinking with who you are.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

Be as you wish to seem.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have.

Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.

Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

My dad seemed comfortable with his decision to be a ‚have-not,‘ but I knew that I wasn’t.

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

No, I’m not a French designer either. I’m from nowhere. I’m a European, old European is all I am.

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.

In this business you have to develop a thick skin, but I’m always going to feel everything. It’s my nature.

It’s kind of exhilarating, walking through a crazy, insane mob. The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

There are so many emotions that you’re feeling, you can get stifled by them if you’re feeling them all at once. What I try to do is take one moment – one simple, simple feeling – and expand it into three-and-a-half minutes.

Well, there are some things that I just can’t get out of my head, and they start to annoy me after a while. Sometimes they’re of my own creation, as well – and they’re just as annoying. It’s not only other people’s ear worms that bug me, it’s my own, as well.

The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

It’s dangerous to read the Internet about yourself when you’re me. Or when you’re anyone in the public eye.

Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

Acting is a nice childish profession – pretending you’re someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.

Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.

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

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

There’s a deceptive sin that can keep us from walking in love: pride. It’s deceptive because when you have pride, you’re usually too proud to admit it. I know this because I used to have teachings on pride and they didn’t sell well.

All of our problems start in our minds.

I’ve always been – you know, my personality is motivating and encouraging. And so I’m just being who God made me to be.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.