It’s a very strange thing being recognized or looked upon as someone special.

What a liberation to realize that the ‚voice in my head‘ is not who I am. ‚Who am I, then?‘ The one who sees that.

The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.

Every spirit makes its house, and we can give a shrewd guess from the house to the inhabitant.

If I’m a star, then the people made me a star.

I think my worst problem is actually living in the moment and understanding everything that’s going on. I feel like I’m in my own bubble.

Our brains are either our greatest assets or our greatest liabilities.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response.

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

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

The nice thing is that when people come up to me, it’s the football they remember, not all the other rubbish.

I feel you’re in charge of your own situation.

The truth is something that burns. It burns off dead wood. And people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent dead wood.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition!

I know who I am, I know what I can and can’t do. I know what I will and won’t do. I know what I’m capable of and I don’t agree to do things that I don’t think I can pull off.

People like to blame others. I think a person should just look at their own situation, look around them, find out what they wish to do, and seek and go and do that. And that’s it.

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

One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.

If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

To such an extent does nature delight and abound in variety that among her trees there is not one plant to be found which is exactly like another; and not only among the plants, but among the boughs, the leaves and the fruits, you will not find one which is exactly similar to another.

I more fear what is within me than what comes from without.

I’m not a god – I do bad things.

No person is important enough to make me angry.

It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.

Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.

A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.

It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

Sure, I can get a little bit jealous. The good part about jealousy is that it comes from passion. It’s also the dangerous part and it’s an ugly emotion that hurts.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing.

I felt I had to solve everyone’s problems.

God will not look you over for medals degrees or diplomas, but for scars.

That’s the biggest gift I can give anybody: ‚Wake up, be aware of who you are, what you’re doing and what you can do to prevent yourself from becoming ill.‘

I don’t see myself as ever being like anybody else.

Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

If something can corrupt you, you’re corrupted already.

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?

Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That’s not a guess, it’s a guarantee. With pride, it’s not a matter of ‚if‘ we will fall, but ‚when.‘ There are no exceptions.

When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.

In the United States, I am a great success, but I am not a celebrity.

In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.

He knows my limitations and where I’m a good wife and a good mom.

I don’t really read a lot of newspapers. I don’t pay attention to what is being said or written about me. I’ve had lots of experiences in the past when I got too much into it. That sort of diverts your focus.

Actors know what actors are insecure about – and they’re all insecure.

I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn’t care for it in other people either.

In one day, I have times where I’m feeling great, I feel like I love my life, and then 2:30 rolls around and I’m the angriest man alive. My wife sees it.

So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.

Our necessities never equal our wants.