I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‚I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,‘ and I actually meant it.

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that’s the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread.

A lot of the problems I had with fame I was bringing on myself. A lot of self-loathing, a lot of woe-is-me. Now I’m learning to see the positive side of things, instead of, like, ‚I can’t go to Kmart. I can’t take my kids to the haunted house.‘

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.

A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.

My experiences in life are getting bigger and better. The more stuff I do, the more stuff I talk about – having kids, traveling, going through relationship problems, dealing with things in my own family. All that stuff builds character.

Most of us experience a life full of wonderful moments and difficult moments. But for many of us, even when we are most joyful, there is fear behind our joy.

Some people are very good at being ‚stars‘ and it suits them. I’m grudging about it and I find it annoying.

The truth is, somebody is always talking about you, so you have to let it go… if it’s not a part of your God-given destiny.

There’s something about being in front of a live audience that’s fun. It’s a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can’t get it anywhere else. And I’ve been doing it since I was 23, so it’s part of my being – it’s part of my fabric as a person.

Real joy seems to me almost as unlike security or prosperity as it is unlike agony.

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.

The palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

The pause between the errors and trials of the day and the hopes of the night.

When someone is impatient and says, ‚I haven’t got all day,‘ I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day?

Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.

It is amazing how a new child can refocus one’s direction seconds after its birth.

But now, being a parent, I go home and see my son and I forget about any mistake I ever made or the reason I’m upset. I get home and my son is smiling or he comes running to me. It has just made me grow as an individual and grow as a man.

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.

To be able to throw one’s self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman’s smile – that is happiness.

People say I look so happy – and I say, ‚That’s the Botox.‘

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.

It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?

I don’t look at my old work. I mean, they made nice books; the books were made without me, the one from last year and the one from this year. I – personally, I’m not interested in my own past. I’m only interested in today – perhaps tomorrow.

Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

When I was a youngster I lived with different families. I nearly always felt closer to the man of the house. Maybe because I always dreamed of having a father of my own.

I just make good movies. That’s the way I thank my fans.

Yeah, I like to keep myself interested – I’ll kind of throw myself into some area that I don’t completely know or understand, that I’m not adept at, so I’m forced to swim in order to stay afloat. There’s a good feeling that comes from that.

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

I don’t know if I particularly want to be remembered for anything. I personally do not think I’m a great gift to the world. I’ve been very fortunate.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

You can’t put your feet on the ground until you’ve touched the sky.

I think I’m like most people – we fear the unknown and the things that have yet to come to pass, which are the very things that don’t deserve to be feared. When you give God complete control, it’s very hard not to be fearless.

As I’m traveling around, I meet many small children. And when I look at a small and think how we’ve harmed this beautiful planet since I was that age, I feel a kind of desperation, anger, shame. I don’t know what I feel; I just don’t know what the emotion is.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

If you get your ego in your way, you will only look to other people and circumstances to blame.

I’ve had a few semi-toxic relationships, but it’s not what I look for when I’m seeing someone.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

It’s certainly not wrong to want to be a better person. God gave us that desire.

I think it is the height of ignorance to believe that the sexual act is an independent function necessary like sleeping or eating. Seeing, therefore, that I did not desire more children, I began to strive after self-control. There was endless difficulty in the task.

Oh, I’ve always been very… Emotional. ‚Hypersensitive‘ is what they call it, I think.

I am an ordinary man who worked hard to develop the talent I was given. I believed in myself, and I believe in the goodness of others.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

Success is only meaningful and enjoyable if it feels like your own.

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

When the kids are laughing in the audience, I tear up, I’m so happy I did a nice thing.

To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.