I was not a good student. I did not spend much time at college; I was too busy enjoying myself.

I’ve never been pregnant, so I just feel God didn’t mean for me to have kids so that everybody else’s children could be mine.

I deeply regret any harm, or any perceived harm, that I may have done to anyone by any behaviour of mine.

My ‚fear‘ is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backwards way of assessing and living life.

It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.

Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

I still have mixed feelings about what growing up is – this thing that happens to everyone, so I’ve heard.

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.

There’s room for role models who make mistakes.

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

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

It’s like a jar of salad dressing sitting on a shelf… most of the seasoning settles to the bottom of the bottle. But when you shake that bottle up, all the ingredients mix together and then the dressing can add flavor to a salad. In the same way, we can stir ourselves up and regain the reverence, respect and awe we once had for the Lord.

If you don’t live your life, then who will?

It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

One today is worth two tomorrows.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

Whatever that means, however you got on that mountain, why not try to climb it? And do it in your own way.

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

If you try and work out at 4:30 in the afternoon, how many people are going to chip away at that time? Your boss, your job, your work, your family, your other obligations that you might have. At 4:30 in the morning, all those people are asleep, so you can do whatever you want.

It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

I don’t have to be what you want me to be.

I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

I suppose for a very long time I’ve been trying to understand how it is that people might make sense out of their lives and make meaning and make their lives meaningful in the face of the trouble that life brings.

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

I think the best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I’ve got Alzheimer’s.

We must use time creatively.

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

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

It has been hard for me to find it, but I have found love.

I think I have to trust that you end up with the person you’re supposed to end up with, and that everything in between is there to teach you stuff.

You cannot see the changes that you’re dreaming about, because they’re internal.

My future is righteousness.

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.

‚Perfection‘ to me is, I walk away from a situation and say, ‚I did everything I could do right there. There was nothing more that I could do.‘ I was a hundred percent, like the meter was at the top. There was nothing else I could have done. You know? Like, I worked as hard as I possibly could have. That’s perfection.

I know I will never be happy, but I know I can be gay!

I think that people just have this core desire to express who they are. And I think that’s always existed.

There’s not some idea I’m going to create a work that’s going to change everybody’s consciousness.

I always was that person who was hard on myself and challenged myself no matter what I was doing, whether it was passing third grade or playing basketball.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

When I write, when I’m going hot, I don’t want to write more than four hours in a row. After that, you’re pushing it.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

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

You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.

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.

You have to be smart. The easy days are over.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

The world around me has changed, and I have learned to adapt but not change. But I’m changing into the woman I am meant to be.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

Billy Graham is one of my great lifetime heroes. I think he epitomizes the essence of what a Christian leader should be. I have participated in some of his crusades a couple of times in Atlanta. I’ve seen the profound impact he’s had on me personally, and on other people who were not Christians and accepted Christ as Savior.

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

One of the most important decisions you’ll ever make is choosing the kind of universe you exist in: is it helpful and supportive or hostile and unsupportive? Your answer to this question will make all the difference in terms of how you live your life and what kind of Divine assistance you attract.

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people’s kids than I did my own.

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

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.

First thing I do in the morning, after I have my breakfast and do my spiritual work, is put on my makeup and fix my hair, and I can do my makeup in 15 minutes.

I have survivor’s curiosity, I guess.

I feel that sin and evil are the negative part of you, and I think it’s like a battery: you’ve got to have the negative and the positive in order to be a complete person.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.