If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

Never complain and never explain.

I realized the other day that I’ve lived in New York longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was ‚call attention to yourself,‘ or ‚think you were smart.‘ My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

When I inspire myself, I want to spread the word because its important to be healthy. I don’t think they’re teaching us enough about that. I think we should eat better and exercise. Look who’s saying that – a guy who was 300 pounds – but I’m doing a lot better than I used to. I’m letting people know its important because it makes you feel better.

I am who I am today because of my mother.

At first, I was scared to show fear because you can never be sure how people will perceive you. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Now I’ll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever.

I was married a few times, and one of my husbands was jealous of me writing.

Would you believe in what you believe in if you were the only one who believed it?

Yes, I’m still going to misbehave!

I just have a relationship with my imagination. It’s like my friend, almost.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

I just really believe people have to get hungry. I think maybe what we need to do, instead of trying to stuff our beliefs down people’s throats, is just pray for them to really be hungry and to see their neediness.

When I look back on my life as a whole, it is impossible for me not to feel blessed.

Because you know when you first become famous, you start walking a little different because people are staring at you.

My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.

Most people are happy being average. Most are happy being faceless in a sea of faces.

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

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

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

Let’s embrace being not normal!

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

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

The way I approach this thing, when I started to get my head screwed on straight and really trying to make something of myself as an artist, when I was 19 or 20, it became more about function for me. Like, what is this song doing to you? What is the function of this type of artform? What is it doing?

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

We are continually shaped by the forces of coincidence.

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

There are certain things that bother me and certain things that don’t. Personal attacks on me? I think I’m just so used to it.

I’m a free spirit.

You don’t have the same mentality as you did five years ago – even one year. People are always changing, and I believe that everyone deserves the space to change and for people to recognize their change.

I’m sure like everyone else I’m not always the happiest if I don’t do a good job in quali or the race or whatever, so I think beating myself up sometimes makes me work harder.

I’m crazy and I don’t pretend to be anything else.

I love wearing whatever is comfortable, and that could be something which was in trend years ago. So, I don’t follow fashion.

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves. But it is something I must do.

I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.

I’m not afraid to look like an idiot.

I want to look my best for God. So many people have the attitude that if you’re a Christian you’ve got to dress bad, wear an old color, not do anything to your hair, have nothing. It’s no wonder that Christianity is not very attractive. I mean, how many people do you know in a Western culture that’s going to go, ‚Yeah, give me some of that?‘

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Your entire life only happens in this moment. The present moment is life itself. Yet, people live as if the opposite were true and treat the present moment as a stepping stone to the next moment – a means to an end.

All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street.

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

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

I can say I’d honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I’ve written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

I have learned to know God. I have recast my social belief… All my admirers are married; most of my friends are dead; and I stand with all the world before me, where to choose a path to make in it.

Getting money is not all a man’s business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

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

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

The work is the work. The work is not me.

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

Where would I be without baseball? Who am I without baseball?