I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn’t bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn’t have any brains. I didn’t know what I was doing there. That’s why I became an actor.

I was ironing my own clothes when I was 11 years old. My mental strength goes back to those days.

I am a part of everything that I have read.

In school, I could hear the leaves rustle and go on a journey.

I keep working because I learn something new all the time.

You cannot let where you are today cause you to get stuck. I’m going to be my best right now. That’s what faith is all about.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

Crowded classrooms and half-day sessions are a tragic waste of our greatest national resource – the minds of our children.

Some of the kids in school used to call my father a fake or a phony. That kind of thing brought on a few fights.

Few men would dare to read their own autobiography if all their deeds were recorded in it; few can look back upon their entire career without a blush.

There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that’s true of everyone, don’t you?

I always wanted a family.

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.

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.

Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.

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

You can’t go backward in life.

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

Peace in the world starts with peace in oneself. If everyone lives mindfully, everyone will be more healthy, feel more fulfilled in their daily lives and there will be more peace.

What’s really hard is that you could care a lot for someone and not want to live with him anymore.

My main goal is to be a self-made man and have control over what’s mine.

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

Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it. Far the greatest things grow by God’s law out of the smallest. But to live your life, you must discipline it.

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.

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

I went through a lot of battles in high school.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not. I’m really confused now.

Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

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

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.

I think it’s healthy for a person to be nervous. It means you care – that you work hard and want to give a great performance. You just have to channel that nervous energy into the show.

There are phases in life which surface at times, and it makes you understand that despite you working hard, everything what you are doing is probably not enough. That’s when you need to look around, and beyond.

Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.

We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come… We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life’s hard times.

People should make up their own mind about what they think of me.

People tend to play in their comfort zone, so the best things are achieved in a state of surprise, actually.

I can handle pain.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

The mind of a 19-year-old is very different from the mind of a 26-year-old. You grow. You get into better relationships. You experience more, meet more people, better people. But when you’re in a dark hole at an earlier point in your life – you write about the mindset you’re in at that moment.

When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.

Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinion of others.

Being a full human being is difficult, frightening, and problematical.

Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.

Once I realized that right thinking is vital to victorious living, I got more serious about thinking about what I was thinking about, and choosing my thoughts carefully.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

In retrospect, I can see I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

I was becoming post-ideological.

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

My father was a swim teacher. We used to swim before school, swim after school.

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.

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

Individuals need to be willing to face truth about their attitudes, behaviors, even what we want out of life.

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