I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn’t care for it in other people either.

My daughter doesn’t even get my humor. She’s like, ‚Um, no. I don’t get it, Dad. Mmm, no, not that one, Dad.‘

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

Life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s hard to take being on the top – or on the bottom. I guess I’m something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things… Life is one crisis after another.

I already am a product.

I’m not a bad person.

There is such a thing as old emotional pain living inside you. It is an accumulation of painful life experience that was not fully faced and accepted in the moment it arose. It leaves behind an energy form of emotional pain.

I spent most of the early years of my walk with God focused on what was wrong with me. Most of us probably do that, hoping to change ourselves.

It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it’s unbelievable!

I’m very, very serious – I’m serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

I’ve learned a lot since I was a new mother. My approach to struggle and shame now is to talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love and reach out to tell your story.

The thing about the truth is, not a lot of people can handle it.

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

I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.

I have never regarded myself as a hero, but Tenzing undoubtedly was.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Every single one of us has a few months here or there that feel like dark months.

I have no time to think about other writers. I am too busy with my own problems.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

You will be as much value to others as you have been to yourself.

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.

You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.

People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.

I have never felt more confident in myself, more clear on who I am as a woman. But I am constantly thinking about my own health and making sure that I’m eating right and getting exercise and watching the aches and pains. I want to be this really fly 80-90-year old.

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.

The things that transfixed you as a child, that you found most exciting was not a passing fancy, but a message about what you’re supposed to do.

The best of us must sometimes eat our words.

You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection – you cannot cope with the future.

My view is that at a younger age your optimism is more and you have more imagination etc. You have less bias.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

I’m not perfect.

Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don’t let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it.

Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.

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.

It is hard sometimes to always be at the centre of attention, but when you talk about me you also have to talk about the climate.

Everyone is different. Everyone has different teams they’ve played on, coaches they’ve played for.

To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.

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

I grew up in a very nice house in Houston, went to private school all my life and I’ve never even been to the ‚hood. Not that there’s anything wrong with the ‚hood.

Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.

For an author, the nice characters aren’t much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They’re doing it for themselves.

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.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

There will be days when I walk in an arena and people will cheer and then there might be days when I walk in an arena and people might boo, but it all sounds the same to me because it’s all just noise that lets me know that I’m relevant.

I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

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.

You know, there is always times where you feel discouraged and things coming against you, but I don’t know if I ever wanted to throw in the towel.

There are two kinds of people in this world. ‚I‘ people and ‚we‘ people. I’ve always tried to be a ‚we‘ person.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

The deepest desire of the human spirit is to be acknowledged.

It is important to remember yourself.

I’ve learned people are watching, so don’t do nothing stupid.

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 every choice you make comes from an honest place, you’re solid, and nothing anybody can say about you can rock you or change your opinion.

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