I’m concerned that my technical skills have advanced to the point where I can get closer to what I’m aiming for, which is not such a good thing.

A lot of the problems I had with fame I was bringing on myself. A lot of self-loathing, a lot of woe-is-me. Now I’m learning to see the positive side of things, instead of, like, ‚I can’t go to Kmart. I can’t take my kids to the haunted house.‘

I have surrounded myself with very smart people.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

Even with my divorce and with everything, I don’t need money.

Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.

I think I have always had a little humor.

I have trouble with letting go. That’s my problem.

I’m chasing perfection.

Listening to and understanding our inner sufferings will resolve most of the problems we encounter.

It is important for you to know who you are and who you may become. It is more important than what you do, even as vital as your work is and will be.

Learning about climate change triggered my depression in the first place. But it was also what got me out of my depression, because there were things I could do to improve the situation. I don’t have time to be depressed anymore.

My only fault is that I don’t realize how great I really am.

Get mad, then get over it.

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.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

I imagine I will be less involved in film and be focused more on family and foreign affairs.

My whole life is a theater piece.

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‚people.‘ People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war… Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.

If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it’s unbelievable!

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.

I’m totally myself.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‚Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?‘

I’ve never been pregnant, so I just feel God didn’t mean for me to have kids so that everybody else’s children could be mine.

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

I am not very good with relationships. With anyone. I can’t be locked up with anyone for too long.

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one’s nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves.

People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working.

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.

How one life turns out is not dependent on what people do to us or what they don’t do for us.

Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they’re not trying to keep up with you.

Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.

Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself.

If you haven’t forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others.

I’m not arrogant enough to look back on my career and criticize my choices. It’s really not my place.

People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think.

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.

Acting helped me as I was growing up. It helped me learn about myself, helped me travel, helped me understand life, express myself, all those wonderful things. So I’m very, very grateful; it’s a fun job. It’s a luxury.

I came up from a difficult background.

Your body has space within you that cannot die.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

A child wants things to be a certain way. When you get to be an adult, you just understand that some people are good, some are not, and you can’t be naive.

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.

When I was 8 years old I became a mute and was a mute until I was 13, and I thought of my whole body as an ear, so I can go into a crowd and sit still and absorb all sound. That talent or ability has lasted and served me until today.

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.

For me, ‚risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

I worked out early on to give up things I couldn’t do well at all.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

Don’t let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn’t go with it.