It’s easy to become very self-critical when you’re an actor. Then you get critiqued by the critics. Whether you agree with them or not, people are passing judgment on you.

Fame doesn’t fulfill you. It warms you a bit, but that warmth is temporary.

I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.

I’m almost like three people. There’s me the, Dolly, the person. There’s me, the star. And then there’s me, the manager.

I am sure there’s going to be times when I do things wrong that no one’s going to like and everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish but I know I’m going to go through those times, and it’s just about understanding that that’s going to happen.

Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration.

To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.

Men must know their limitations.

If you would judge, understand.

We’re all caught up in circumstances, and we’re all good and evil. When you’re really hungry, for instance, you’ll do anything to survive. I think the most evil thing – well, maybe that’s too strong – but certainly a very evil thing is judgment, the sin of ignorance.

One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.

We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences, and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves: nothing original, pristine, clear.

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

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.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

My body is quite tiny, but a lot of the emotions I feel are pretty explosive. They have to come out.

Many years ago, I concluded that a few hair shirts were part of the mental wardrobe of every man. The president differs from other men in that he has a more extensive wardrobe.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.

I just really believe people have to get hungry. I think maybe what we need to do, instead of trying to stuff our beliefs down people’s throats, is just pray for them to really be hungry and to see their neediness.

I realized, ‚Yo, I can’t do anything in moderation. I don’t know how.‘

The human being is a strange mixture of blind instinct, on one hand, and conscience, on the other.

I hate pain, despite my ability to tolerate it beyond all known parameters, which is not necessarily a good thing.

When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.

The idea of recognising your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.

We human beings are strange creatures and still reserve the right to think for ourselves.

Coaching wouldn’t be for me. No, certainly not.

I try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like, color of their skin, whether they’re men or women.

I’m proud to be an actor. See, as an actor, you live longer. Football players, the brain and all that stuff, ooh-eee, that’s not good.

Even if you’re happy with the life you’ve chosen, you’re still curious about the other options.

When people are lame, they love to blame.

These critics with the illusions they’ve created about artists – it’s like idol worship. They only like people when they’re on their way up… I cannot be on the way up again.

I’m one of them guys that tries to make everything the best of the best, so sometimes I’m out of control with it.

You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.

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

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

I resent the implication that I’m less of a musician and a worse person for not appreciating certain works.

People really had a problem with my disinterest in submission. They had a problem with my intellect, and they had a problem with my choice of lovers. They had a problem with my choice of everything.

It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgement after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.

For people who may think they know, or have snippets of who I am, you can attack that person. That’s part of being a public figure.

When you stop caring what people think, you lose your capacity for connection. When you’re defined by it, you lose our capacity for vulnerability.

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

I hear my friends and my mom tell me I’m special, but honestly, I still don’t get it.

I’m an emotional person. Sometimes I can’t help it.

Don’t ever play yourself.

We judge people in areas where we’re vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we’re doing.

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.

The difficult thing is that vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I’m willing to show you. In you, it’s courage and daring. In me, it’s weakness.

I never even thought of myself as deadpan until someone wrote an article about me about a year after I was doing comedy. There was a paper called the ‚Boston Phoenix,‘ and someone wrote a description of what I was doing and that’s where I first saw ‚deadpan.‘

We’re one of the only animals in the world that don’t really think of ourselves as animals, but we are animals, and we must respect our fellow animals.

Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.

No man is hurt but by himself.

Extremely religious, legalistic people have a criticism or judgment about everyone and everything. They just have a way of bringing people down with what they say.

Somebody’s boring me. I think it’s me.

Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.