I’m almost like three people. There’s me the, Dolly, the person. There’s me, the star. And then there’s me, the manager.

I think there are a number of things that you can do to encourage your kids‘ dreams, but I do believe in speaking by experience of having a lot of help along the way, stumbling in the past. We’ve all stumbled, and we certainly all deserve to get up and walk again.

I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.

I’m quite a chauvinistic person.

Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

Maybe ‚loner‘ is too strong a word, but I’ve always enjoyed being on my own.

Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.

The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

If you feel that there’s the author and then the character, then the book is not working. People have a habit of identifying the author with the narrator, and you can’t, obviously, be all of the narrators in all of your books, or else you’d be a very strange person indeed.

The Bible tells us to be perfect. This is likely a scary thought for many people. It used to scare me. I didn’t think I could ever get there, no matter how hard I tried.

What a liberation to realize that the ‚voice in my head‘ is not who I am. ‚Who am I, then?‘ The one who sees that.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

I’m very aware and very conscious of the path I chose in life, and very aware of the path I didn’t choose.

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

My purpose is to help people look at themselves and begin to shift their concepts. Remember, we are not our country, our race, or religion. We are eternal spirits. Seeing ourselves as spiritual beings without label is a way to transform the world and reach a sacred place for all of humanity.

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

Sure, I can get a little bit jealous. The good part about jealousy is that it comes from passion. It’s also the dangerous part and it’s an ugly emotion that hurts.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.

I never have really become accustomed to the ‚John.‘ Nobody ever really calls me John… I’ve always been Duke or Marion or John Wayne. It’s a name that goes well together, and it’s like one word – John Wayne.

I just want to be myself.

As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.

Memories are thoughts that arise. They’re not realities. Only when you believe that they are real, then they have the power over you. But when you realize it’s just another thought arising about the past, then you can have a spacious relationship with that thought. The thought no longer has you in its grip.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

I’ve 20,000 hours of clinical practice; you’re not naive after the first few thousand. I’ve helped people deal with things that most people can’t imagine.

I never said I was the best in anything. I never said I’m an icon. The world decides all of that.

Some people would like me to be round again.

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

The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

I’m not a natural performer or exhibitionist. When I was younger, I hated the focus, and it made me feel strange.

There’s no reality except the one contained within us. That’s why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.

I was in a terrible mess in my childhood.

Needing to have things perfect is the surest way to immobilize yourself with frustration.

I’m just like you – I want to be a good human being. I’m doing my best, and I’m working at it. And I’m trying to be a Christian. I’m always amazed when people walk up to me and say, ‚I’m a Christian.‘ I always think, ‚Already? You’ve already got it?‘ I’m working at it. And at my age, I’ll still be working at it at 96.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

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

I think I’m pretty smart. I think I’m pretty clever. But there’s a lot that you hone in on when you finish your education.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.

Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

People may think I’m trying something new by telling stories, but they’re just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That’s what I do.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

I’m inconsistent, even to myself.

I am who I am and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record.

I think I’ve developed, as many people do, this sense of, ‚Don’t say the wrong thing, or else people will point at you and laugh.‘

This above all; to thine own self be true.

I try not to think about my life. I have no life. I need therapy.

When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

I talk about myself in the third person all the time. I don’t live my life in the way someone like you does. I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans.

I had to prove you could be a new kind of black man. I had to show the world.

My fans saw me get engaged, saw me make that woman my wife, me having kids, me divorcing, me talking about divorce before the divorce, me talking about my kids‘ reaction to that divorce.

I always was that person who was hard on myself and challenged myself no matter what I was doing, whether it was passing third grade or playing basketball.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

For people who may think they know, or have snippets of who I am, you can attack that person. That’s part of being a public figure.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.