If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.

We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to turn us. We can become consumed by hate and darkness, or we’re able to regain our humanity somehow, or come to terms with things and learn something about ourselves.

I thought it completely absurd to mention my name in the same breath as the presidency.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

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

How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I’ll say that. Wonder and terror.

I’ve been careful in love. I’ve been careless in love. And I’ve had adventures I wouldn’t trade for anything.

My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne – to beat her down, hide her.

I’m an atheist, and the concept of god for me is all part of what I call ‚the last illusion.‘ The last illusion is someone knows what is going on. Nearly everyone has that illusion somewhere, and it manifests not only in the terms of the idea that there is a god but that it knows what’s going on but that the planets know what’s going on.

As for my own views, they’ve of course evolved over the years. This conception of ‚renouncing beliefs‘ is very odd, as if we’re in some kind of religious cult. I ‚renounce beliefs‘ practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.

Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history… this is what makes you strong. It’s not looking out that’s going to do that – it’s looking in.

What the Pope thinks of being gay does not matter to the world. It matters to the people who like the Pope and follow the Pope… It is not a reflection of all religious people.

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

I believe that Jesus was, you know, the Son of God. And I understand that… we need to be really, really respectful to people who find that ridiculous and… preposterous.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

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.

Honor thy error as a hidden intention.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

Writing means sharing. It’s part of the human condition to want to share things – thoughts, ideas, opinions.

When I was 8 years old, it mattered what my favorite singer said and wore and expressed opinions about.

A game is like a mirror that allows you to look at yourself.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

I never think about myself as an artist working in this time. I think about it in macro.

My life is mine to remember.

With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about yourself – for survival and living day to day with what comes up.

The hippie movement politicized my generation. When it ended, we all started looking back at our own history, looking, in my case, for motives of rebellion.

I think that, ah, I’m a very goofy sort of person in many ways.

We have communion with Christ in His thoughts, views, and purposes; for His thoughts are our thoughts according to our capacity and sanctity. Believers take the same view of matters as Jesus does; that which pleases Him pleases them, and that which grieves His grieves them also.

I was very depressed when I was 19… I would go back to my apartment every day and I would just sit there. It was quiet and it was lonely. It was still. It was just my piano and myself. I had a television and I would leave it on all the time just to feel like somebody was hanging out with me.

As a kid, I’d go into the bathroom when I was having a tantrum. I’d be in the bathroom crying, studying myself in the mirror. I was preparing for future roles.

The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

I will be unhappy if I know I have not accomplished something I should have done that was possible.

Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.

I don’t believe in colleges and universities.

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

There are people who don’t like capitalism, and people who don’t like PCs. But there’s no-one who likes the PC who doesn’t like Microsoft.

I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.

I am trying to find myself. Sometimes that’s not easy.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It’s because I’m not quite an atheist and it worries me. There’s that little bit that holds on: ‚Well, I’m almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.‘

If you want to get each individual’s honest opinion, you don’t want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

I was sure I’d set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth – that I hadn’t set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if ‚The Big Trail‘ had been a success and launched me as a star.

Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.

One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.

One of the greatest lessons of my own life was learning to turn the inner rampage of hatred and anger toward my own father for his reprehensible behavior and abandonment of his family into an inner reaction more closely aligned with God and God-realized love.

It’s hard to articulate how I think about myself as a public figure.

A man’s own judgment should be the final appeal in all that relates to himself.

Vanity is but the surface.

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‚If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?‘ And whenever the answer has been ‚No‘ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

I tend to believe that audiences are relatively well-balanced people.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.

I don’t believe in killing whatever the reason!

Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.