If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people’s opinions will rush in from all quarters.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Reactive people… are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior.

Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

Pride deafens us to the advice or warnings of those around us.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

Keep in mind that no matter how perfectly you get your life in order, you will never be rid of all your problems. Problems are a way of life, always have been, always will be. But how you elect to view those problems is all up to you.

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‚Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.‘

It’s a tragedy, in a way, that Americans are brought up to think that they cannot feel for other people and other beings just because they are different. They think they’re different. It’s very limiting.

The only passion that guides me is for the truth… I look at everything from this point of view.

Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.

I’ve learned that usually, the less I know about other people, the better off I am.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

I feel like whatever you’ve done in your career, good or bad, it’s nothing but preparation for the big events to come.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being real they’re real for you whether they’re real or not.

My public is growing up just as I am. After all, I’m not 19 anymore and if I stick with the sex bit, who will be paying to see me when I’m 50?

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

I’m rather kind of old school, thinking that when an artist does his work, it’s no longer his… I just see what people make of it.

I think there is a lot made out of age, and what age you feel.

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.

A man is but the product of his thoughts, what he thinks he becomes.

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.

No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.

You can change your world by changing your words… Remember, death and life are in the power of the tongue.

The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.

If I feel anxious every time someone is staring at me, well, I can’t control what they stare at, but my reaction is, I’m just not going to go outside the house. I’m going to stay in and chill. And when I do go out, I understand what comes along with that.

The one thing that ‚Via Dolorosa‘ has is no opinions. To me, curiosity is 50 times as valuable as opinion.

When I left Dortmund, I said it’s not important what people think when you come in but what they think when you leave.

On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.

We human beings are strange creatures and still reserve the right to think for ourselves.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

No man is hurt but by himself.

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

I don’t go around thinking I’m Ray Bradbury all the time.

I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people’s minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.

Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.

The question of sexual dominance can exist only in the nightmare of that soul which has armed itself, totally, against the possibility of the changing motion of conquest and surrender, which is love.

We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.

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.

I don’t think it’s possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.

It’s easy to become very self-critical when you’re an actor. Then you get critiqued by the critics. Whether you agree with them or not, people are passing judgment on you.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

But if I have a lot of imagination, I could tell myself whatever I wanted, you know. I handle myself quite well. I’m kind of fascist with myself, you know. There’s no discussion. There is an order. You follow it.

The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.

Oh, yes; you Virginians shed barrels of perspiration while standing off at a distance and superintending the work your slaves do for you. It is different with us. Here it is every fellow for himself, or he doesn’t get there.

I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.

There is something curiously boring about somebody else’s happiness.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.