It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

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

One of my proudest moments is I didn’t sell my soul for the sake of popularity.

I searched for years I found no love. I’m sure that love will never be a product of plasticity.

I’m kind of claustrophobic… It’s not even like enclosed spaces. It’s like I hate being stuck in one band, you know? Just being stuck is the biggest drag, for fear that, you know, just that you can’t get out.

It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

I’m no genius.

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.

When I was younger, I was testing myself and questioning everything, but now it’s less about that and more about these are the years of my life with my family.

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.

I like actors very much, but to marry one would be like marrying your brother. You look too much alike in the mirror.

If women were particular about men’s characters, they would never get married at all.

Many people, especially young people, would like to be more independent and on their own. But it is very difficult and they suffer from feelings of isolation. I think that is one reason why young readers support my work.

I intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod. Oh, and since this is England, I had better add, ‚If wet, in the library.‘ Who could say that this is bad?

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

You can’t go backward in life.

None of the records I make are ever a deliberate construction – they’re always an expression of who I am at the time and where I am in my life.

He that has not got a wife is not yet a complete man.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

It requires more courage to suffer than to die.

In all our contacts it is probably the sense of being really needed and wanted which gives us the greatest satisfaction and creates the most lasting bond.

I am a child but I have to think and act like a woman, this business forces you to.

I’ve told Billy if I ever caught him cheating, I wouldn’t kill him because I love his children and they need a dad. But I would beat him up. I know where all of his sports injuries are.

I want kids. I want a soccer team, and I want a husband.

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

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

He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

Homeland or death! Socialism or death! We shall overcome!

Prejudice is a chain, it can hold you. If you prejudice, you can’t move, you keep prejudice for years. Never get nowhere with that.

All of our problems start in our minds.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, ‚Why god? Why me?‘ and the thundering voice of God answered, ‚There’s just something about you that pisses me off.‘

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.

A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.

Prison was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

Conscious of not being able to separate myself from my time, I have decided to become part of it.

There’s something about being in front of a live audience that’s fun. It’s a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can’t get it anywhere else. And I’ve been doing it since I was 23, so it’s part of my being – it’s part of my fabric as a person.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

What the mind doesn’t understand, it worships or fears.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others‘ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honor.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

I’ve always written. There’s a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother’s papers were destroyed. I’d written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then.

I have an urge to communicate. I think I’m a change from what it would be like dating a normal guy who doesn’t talk too much.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

Thanks to my mother, not a single cardboard box has found its way back into society. We receive gifts in boxes from stores that went out of business twenty years ago.

To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.