I’ve always felt that if I examine myself too much, I’ll find out what I know and don’t know, and I’ll burst the bubble. I’ve gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I’d rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

He who knows himself is enlightened.

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.

Sometimes, I want to talk on a song and be angry, because I am angry. Then there’s always a part of me that remembers that this record lives past my being angry, and so do I really want to be angry about that? Is that feeling going to have longevity?

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by his heart, and his friends can only read the title.

I’d rather tell you how I really feel.

Spending time with God through prayer and His Word is a prerequisite for having a great life and fulfilling your purpose.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

Words are powerful; if you change your words, you can change your life.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.

I used to get into a lot of fights.

Our necessities never equal our wants.

Don’t feel sorry for me.

I sometimes ask people, ‚Can you be aware of your own presence? Not the thoughts that you’re having, not the emotions that you’re having, but the very presence of your very being?‘ You become aware of your own presence by sensing the entire energy field in your body that is alive. And that is the totality of your presence.

I act on impulse and I go with my instincts.

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.

First, I’m trying to prove to myself that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll convince myself that I’m an actress.

Humor has bailed me out of more tight situations than I can think of. If you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows. With luck, success comes, too.

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.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‚Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.‘

Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can – that is their secret.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

I’m not a star. I don’t feel I’m so great. So how can I make you feel great just because you’ve got my signature on a piece of paper?

Once I realized that right thinking is vital to victorious living, I got more serious about thinking about what I was thinking about, and choosing my thoughts carefully.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

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

When it comes to our everyday habits, it’s important to ask: ‚Am I putting God first?‘

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

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

The Public is merely a multiplied ‚me.‘

I’ve never been a boyfriend kind of girl.

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy.

If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.

Guarding your heart and protecting your dignity are a little bit more important than clarifying the emotions of someone who’s only texting you back three words. I’ve learned that from trying to figure out people who don’t deserve to be figured out.

I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming from inside. There’s no tricks. It’s honesty with big melodies.

I’m not intelligent. I’m not arrogant. I’m just like the people who read my books. I used to have a jazz club, and I made the cocktails and I made the sandwiches. I didn’t want to become a writer – it just happened.

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.

Be as you wish to seem.

People are looking for something a little more stable; people are feeling like they need to get closer to God.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was 23 and the way I handled that.

Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the ‚leaders‘ must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities.

I like to recede away from classifications. You might say that indicates a fundamental lack of commitment. I suppose that’s true to some degree.

It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

Time is compressed like the fist I close on my knee… I hold inside it the clues and solutions and the power for what I must do now.

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

Few of us have vitality enough to make any of our instincts imperious.

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

I’d go from film to film and almost detach from one world and jump in another. I was living as these people and not having a self. I didn’t know who I was. And things just get really dark.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.