If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‚em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.

I have a very strict gun control policy: if there’s a gun around, I want to be in control of it.

There’s only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I’ll get married again.

I guess it’s flattering that everyone believed I was those characters, but it also is dehumanizing.

I just dress like… I’m an old black man. Sorry! Like I’m an old Jewish black man. I just dress like it’s still the ’50s.

I have practically no private life. I’m already used to this and ready for it. Yes, sometimes it is hard, but it is the choice I made.

My one big regret is that I didn’t play on for ten more years.

Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.

When I was making the early stuff, I never expected it to be so big. I was in my own kind of bubble. I never wanted to tour; I just wanted to create music and make a diary I could put out into the world. And sometimes, I became the characters.

I grew up in a funny way.

Once you get into this great stream of history, you can’t get out.

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

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.

Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head.

Homework’s hard. Especially math. My kids joke with me. They tell me they have homework. I say, ‚Okay.‘ And then I sit down and they say, ‚It’s math.‘ ‚No! Not math! English, history, anything!‘

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don’t mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

The less you know, the more you believe.

Most people wouldn’t know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.

Our life is made by the death of others.

If something can corrupt you, you’re corrupted already.

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.

The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism.

We all self-conscious. I’m just the first to admit it.

I don’t see myself as beautiful, because I can see a lot of flaws. People have really odd opinions. They tell me I’m skinny, as if that’s supposed to make me happy.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

Too often we… enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

The ‚soul‘ is one of the words you can use to talk about your innermost being, the essence of who you are.

The narrow bandwidth of TV has made us think that we are stupider than we are.

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

Why do Jewish men die before their wives? They want to.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

Most of the stuff I do on the show comes out of me just trying to make my friends laugh.

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!

The funny thing is people won’t let me pay for things. I’ll be in a restaurant and the manager will say, ‚Oh no, it’s on the house.‘

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America’s really large shadow and that’s not all that bad.

Thank God, I never was cheerful. I come from the happy stock of the Mathers, who, as you remember, passed sweet mornings reflecting on the goodness of God and the damnation of infants.

Changes are not unusual – I mean, most movies, when they release them, they make changes. But somehow, when I make the slightest change, everybody thinks it’s the end of the world.

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

It is impossible to underrate human intelligence – beginning with one’s own.

I like working. That’s when I’m feeling my best. And the people around me know that. My wife knows that.

In my experience, many people confuse being cowardly with being nice.

If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

I guess I have a little bit of an ego. I’m confidently cocky, you might say.

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?

You might not have the things you want, but if you check carefully, you got all you need.

If you’re embarrassed because you have some notion about how men are supposed to behave, and it doesn’t include weeping, then you have some personal work to do.

Once you begin to fall off the track and believe you breathe different air to everyone else, you’re doomed; you’re finished.

It is comforting to reflect that the disproportion of things in the world seems to be only arithmetical.

When you realize who you live for, and who’s important to please, a lot of people will actually start living. I am never going to get caught up in that. I’m gonna look back on my life and say that I enjoyed it – and I lived it for me.

Changing your mind is probably one of the most beautiful things people can do. And I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things over the years.