I’m crazy, but I’m not too crazy.

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.

You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

I don’t want to be too critical of what other people do, but when people go back to do the same thing that they did, I’m completely confused. I’m like, ‚Didn’t you make that movie already?‘ I’ve been very fortunate, and I’m well taken care of, so the least I can do is try to go forward.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

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.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

Only the really plain people know about love – the very fascinating ones try so hard to create an impression that they soon exhaust their talents.

What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

Fear is the thought of admitted inferiority.

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.

The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

This has always been my life and no one else’s, and that’s how it’s always been since the day I came in it.

With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win.

Sometimes I’m a bit under-aggressive and sometimes a bit over. But I think it’s good to have both.

People will try to bring you down, but you gotta go up.

Everything I read about hitting a midlife crisis was true. I had such a struggle letting go of youthful things and learning how to exist and have enthusiasm while settling into the comfort of an older age.

To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.

I still have mixed feelings about what growing up is – this thing that happens to everyone, so I’ve heard.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.

I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.

I periodically realize every few years that the only person whose taste I really trust is me.

I don’t think about the end game. I’ve got lots to occupy my mind. It’s the rage that keeps me going.

I don’t regret anything.

I admire people who destroy themselves.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

I remember, when I was a young guy in the SEAL teams, I was very afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid or doing dumb things and getting a bad reputation.

I don’t want followers.

I use a stream-of-consciousness approach; if you don’t censor yourself, you end up with what you’re most concerned about, but you haven’t filtered it through your conscious mind. Then you craft it.

My father, who was jailed for stealing on more than one occasion, just abandoned his fatherly responsibilities and disappeared. I grew up working from the time I was nine years of age. Money was a big issue everywhere I lived.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn’t bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn’t have any brains. I didn’t know what I was doing there. That’s why I became an actor.

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

As a shame researcher, I know that the very best thing to do in the midst of a shame attack is totally counterintuitive: Practice courage and reach out!

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

My father wasn’t around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, ‚Why me? Why don’t I have a father? Why isn’t he around? Why did he leave my mother?‘ But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, ‚I don’t know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?‘

To me, my house is always recreating what I lost in youth.

If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.

Isn’t it funny how babies laugh a lot? I read a toddler, a young child laughs 300 times a day. The average adult laughs, like, four times a day. God put it in them. He put the laugh in us, but I think sometimes we let life get us down, you know, have bad breaks, and we lose our breaks.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

Men take only their needs into consideration – never their abilities.

You’re not going to scare me into being somebody I don’t want to be.

Your body has space within you that cannot die.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

I don’t have many sad days.