I’m totally myself.

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.‘

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.

I’m no natural beauty. If I’m gonna have any looks at all, I’m gonna have to create them.

I’ve discovered that when we take time to renew our minds with God’s Word, we learn how to think like God thinks, say what God says, and act like He wants us to act.

One of the things I did when I discovered this huge importance of being vulnerable is very happily moved away from the shame research, because that’s such a downer, and people hate that topic. It’s not that vulnerability is the upside, but it’s better than shame, I guess.

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

There’s only one effectively redemptive sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-will to make room for the knowledge of God.

If you change and adapt your persona, you are seen as inauthentic; if you stay the angry young man, you fade from attention or seem tiresome.

I liked his ability to deal with a lot of the negativity that surrounded him. Even though he was in a world that he didn’t want to be in, he still saw the bigger picture.

I was a kind of hyper-intense person in my twenties and very impatient.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

You don’t sign up for a divorce when you get married. It’s very painful. But it’s taught me a great deal about myself.

We’re all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.

I don’t mind people hating me, because it pushes me.

I always had music growing up, but music was also like a journal. It was like my personal diary or personal journal. A lot of the things I couldn’t express to an individual, I would express them in my music.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

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.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

Adopt responsibility for your own well-being, try to put your family together, try to serve your community, try to seek for eternal truth… That’s the sort of thing that can ground you in your life, enough so that you can withstand the difficulty of life.

I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.

Even with all the advantages of retrospect, and a lot of witnesses dead and gone, you can’t make your life look as if you intended it or you were consistent. All you can show is how you dealt with various hands.

I love that I can tell the truth and have people laugh at it.

When I write, it’s like choosing which shoes I’m going to put on. More often than not, my lyrics are personal – but I sometimes have to put myself in other people’s shoes.

I don’t want followers.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

You don’t have the same mentality as you did five years ago – even one year. People are always changing, and I believe that everyone deserves the space to change and for people to recognize their change.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

In my case Pilgrim’s Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.

Reversing your treatment of the man you have wronged is better than asking his forgiveness.

It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Thinking is a wonderful tool if it’s applied. Thinking, however, can not become the master. Thinking is a very bad master. If you’re dominated by thinking then your life becomes very restricted.

I was in a terrible mess in my childhood.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.

I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times.

Who can exhaust a man? Who knows a man’s resources?

It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.

If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I’m not frightened by anyone’s perception of me.

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

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

I am God’s vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.

I always believed that when you follow your heart or your gut, when you really follow the things that feel great to you, you can never lose, because settling is the worst feeling in the world.

If we live a self-directed, self-motivated, self-centered life, always needing to get our own way, then we’re going to be miserable. In fact, many times we believe it’s our problems that are making us unhappy when, in reality, it’s because we’re focused on ourselves!

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.

It’s very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.

By indignities men come to dignities.

I’m so nervous. I’ve always been nervous, ever since I was a kid.

I don’t want to just revolve. I want to evolve. As a man, as a human, as a father, as a lover.

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

I’m giving all that I have in this life. I’m opening up my notebook, and I’m saying everything in there out loud.

I feel like I have a job to do, like I constantly have to reinvent myself. The more I up the ante for myself, the better it is in the long run. I try to interact with my fans as much as possible. It’s good that the person I’m being onstage isn’t really an act. It’s really me.