I’m crazy and I don’t pretend to be anything else.

No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they’re pretty, even if they aren’t.

Those outside the church expect followers of Christ to live differently, yet today many in church are chasing after the world – not to win them, but to be like them.

I’d rather tell you how I really feel.

At Sarah Lawrence, I realized that everybody was already what they were going to be. The painters were painting, the writers writing, the dancers dancing. And nobody wore any makeup. The art was uppermost.

Every time somebody speaks of my honesty, there is someone who quivers inside me.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

When I was writing ‚Kitchen Confidential,‘ I was in my 40s, I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car.

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in. Even if you’re feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.

You don’t have to give way to careless speech or complaining. You don’t have to let your feelings get in the way of what God wants to do in your life.

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.

For me, the world that I inhabit in reality is probably a very different world than the one people expect that I would be in.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company.

My writing is jagged and harsh, I want it to remain that way; I don’t want it smoothed out.

Feels good to try, but playing a father, I’m getting a little older. I see now that I’m taking it more serious and I do want that lifestyle.

It’s easier to aim to please and say what others want to hear than to form an opinion and fight for it, even if it means taking a risk or losing your job.

Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room for the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge.

‚Victory Lap,‘ even the title. It’s the accumulation of trial and error; that’s what I represent; trial and error.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

I’ve learned that men and women who are living wholehearted lives really allow themselves to soften into joy and happiness. They allow themselves to experience it.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

I’m very secure about my talents and about who I am.

The single most powerful thing I can be is to be myself.

I can’t keep somebody from being a star, and I can’t make somebody a star, and nobody can.

To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.

Don’t get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that – if you dare. But get older because it’s fun!

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

Beauty and femininity are ageless and can’t be contrived, and glamour, although the manufacturers won’t like this, cannot be manufactured. Not real glamour; it’s based on femininity.

Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity’s belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.

I had a lovers quarrel with the world.

The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

It is a hard thing to let go of mistakes we’ve made and sins. God wants us to do that because He knows the guilt and the condemnation will keep us from becoming who He has created us to be.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

The quote-unquote ‚description‘ of a leading man was once your tall, handsome man with the build of whatever, almost a trophy to some degree. I think now it’s about making a leading man what you want a leading man to be. In this day, you can’t deny talent. You look at Jonah Hill, you look at Zach Galifianakis, you look at myself.

I had to come from something, come from a place that was negative and positive but the majority of it is a negative place.

I’ve been lucky – all the ads I’ve got, I’ve got to be myself. I haven’t had to act too much or tried too hard to be someone I’m not. I think that’s why people sort of like them. Even the Fastrack ads I did with Genelia.

I’m not a centerfold.

Many people think of perfectionism as striving to be your best, but it is not about self-improvement; it’s about earning approval and acceptance.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

I understand aggressiveness in only one way: being prepared to hurt yourself, not someone else.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.

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

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.

Swearing is industry language. For as long as we’re alive it’s not going to change. You’ve got to be boisterous to get results.

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

I still consider it a summer job, though. So, I try to maintain that summer job as long as I can. But it’s exciting to be able to have the opportunity to do things I always dreamed of as a kid.

I never deny. I never contradict. I sometimes forget.

I worked with someone who told me they’d never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.