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

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.

Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.

Your emotions are very unstable and should never be the foundation for direction in your life.

I try to not focus on what people expect from me.

There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self.

The Canteen Boy, the reason you feel bad for him and you can laugh is because he, and I guess a lot of my characters, they don’t notice they’re getting made fun of. So they’ll say something back that’s not that great a quip, but in their mind they won the argument.

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

I came up from a difficult background.

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

I was asked to act when I couldn’t act. I was asked to sing ‚Funny Face‘ when I couldn’t sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn’t dance – and do all kinds of things I wasn’t prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.

Everything’s intentional. It’s just filling in the dots.

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

I know I’m stronger in the songs than I really am. Sometimes I need to hear it myself. We all need to hear those empowering songs to remind us.

Fame is ultimately about the cycles of desire and how to do away with them or manage them well.

Either you’re the one erasing or you’re the one being erased.

I think I had a mild case of Asperger’s as a younger guy, but that typically just wears off after a while.

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.

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!

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

If I wouldn’t have found Courtney, I probably would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle.

While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.

It’s hard for anybody who’s been with me not to feel starved for affection when I’m making love to my ideas. Maybe it’s not meant for me to settle down and be married.

My work is the only ground I’ve ever had to stand on. To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation, but I’m working on the foundation.

My whole life is a theater piece.

You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.

I’m not a regrets-type person.

I still learn, but I think it’s the best thing in life to have a kid.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.

Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I’ve done it all – I’m good. Now, it’s about setting an example for others to follow. I can’t just talk it – I have to live it.

You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.

It’s not bragging if you can back it up.

I was in a terrible mess in my childhood.

I think for my bones and my size, I better stay with my 60 kilo.

What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren’t any other people living in the world.

Your attitude towards failure determines your altitude after failure.

I’m not the most attractive fella. I’m not a Billy Dee Williams. Personality is everything.

I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

I wish I knew why I am so anguished.

Let go of offence. Let go of fear. Let go of revenge. Don’t live angry, let go now!

I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.

I say, ‚Yeah, Taylor Swift.‘ I think she is a smart, beautiful girl. I think she’s making all the right moves. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’s surrounded with wonderful people. Her songs are great. She keeps herself anchored. She knows who she is, and she’s living and standing by that.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.

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

I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.

You can’t have it all, all at once. Who – man or woman – has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

As I grow up, the lessons I learn in love and relationships and how we treat each other are hopefully maturing – hopefully.

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.

If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people’s opinions will rush in from all quarters.

I have had fun being who I became, so to speak.