If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

It’s still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out.

The drama and the trauma of the relationship you have when you’re 16 can mirror the one you have when you’re 26. Life repeats itself.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less. If we realize that other people are the same people as we are, we are no longer angry at them.

I don’t know driving in another way which isn’t risky. Each one has to improve himself. Each driver has its limit. My limit is a little bit further than other’s.

I’m not this horrible, evil person.

I’m not a New Age person, but I do believe in meditation, and for that reason I’ve always liked the Buddhist religion. When I’ve been to Japan, I’ve been to Buddhist temples and meditated, and I found that rewarding.

History will point out some of the things I did wrong and some of the things I did right.

A man’s own manner and character is what most becomes him.

If you truly get in touch with a piece of carrot, you get in touch with the soil, the rain, the sunshine. You get in touch with Mother Earth and eating in such a way, you feel in touch with true life, your roots, and that is meditation. If we chew every morsel of our food in that way we become grateful and when you are grateful, you are happy.

More people should read books. It’s the most concentrated experience you can have.

For me, it’s about the way I carry myself and the way I treat other people. My relationship and how I feel about God and what He does for me, is something deeply personal. It’s where I came from, my family, I was brought up in a religious household and that’s very important to me.

Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth; it’s a shield.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

When there’s so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you’ve already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?

I am an over-achiever, and I want to be known for the good things in my life.

Asking is the beginning of receiving. Make sure you don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon. At least take a bucket so the kids won’t laugh at you.

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

Calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that’s very important for good health.

He best keeps from anger who remembers that God is always looking upon him.

I set records that will never be equaled. In fact, I hope 90% of them don’t even get printed.

‚Thursday‘ is a conceptual album. Whatever that situation was, I spent the whole album focusing on that situation.

You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.

Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.

If you’re doing your best, you won’t have any time to worry about failure.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

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

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.

I can handle pain.

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.

Any man is liable to err, only a fool persists in error.

Libraries raised me.

When I was about thirteen, the library was going to get ‚Calculus for the Practical Man.‘ By this time I knew, from reading the encyclopedia, that calculus was an important and interesting subject, and I ought to learn it.

Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems – most life situations are – but find out if you have a problem at this moment. Do you have a problem now?

The concept of loneliness and exile and self-sufficiency continually bucks me up.

For most of us, wisdom is acquired in the thicket of experience and usually meets us somewhere along the way if we live long enough. But sooner is better than later.

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.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

Whenever I think of the past, it brings back so many memories.

If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.

Even as you make progress, you need the discipline to keep from backtracking and sabotaging the success as it’s happening.

Everything’s intentional. It’s just filling in the dots.

More compassionate mind, more sense of concern for other’s well-being, is source of happiness.

My head’s never really quiet. The only time I can get it to turn off is if I watch ‚CSI‘ or ‚Law & Order,‘ where I have to follow the crime. If I can’t turn my head off during that, I know I’ve really got a problem.

Mind over mattress.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did – which was to hide.

Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.

It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.

Have you ever thought how humiliating and distressing it was to be placed upon a sphere? For friendship it is a boon never to be able to be further apart than the antipodes. But suppose that you are leaving together to go on and on; it is impossible. To go beyond a certain point is to return to where you began.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

When I write about a 15-year old, I jump, I return to the days when I was that age. It’s like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

The superior man makes the difficulty to be overcome his first interest; success only comes later.

Learn to think continentally.

Looking back on the production of ‚Nevermind,‘ I’m embarrassed by it now. It’s closer to a Motley Crue record than it is a punk rock record.

Remind yourself that the greatest technique for bringing peace into your life is to always choose being kind when you have a choice between being right or being kind.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.