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.

When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.

Let go of yesterday.

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.

My own eight children all march to the beat of their inner music, and in some cases, it is definitely far away from what I hear. I’ve had to honor their instincts and their choices, and merely guided them out of harm’s way until they could be their own guides.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.

I’m like a recovering perfectionist. For me it’s one day at a time.

The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.

In order to heal others, we first need to heal ourselves. And to heal ourselves, we need to know how to deal with ourselves.

Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.

When you look at the sun during your walking meditation, the mindfulness of the body helps you to see that the sun is in you; without the sun there is no life at all and suddenly you get in touch with the sun in a different way.

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

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

I’m inconsistent, even to myself.

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn’t say in real life.

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America’s really large shadow and that’s not all that bad.

Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.

At the end of the day, I understand that life has road blocks, and life is like school – you’ll be tested; we gotta pass it.

Needing to have things perfect is the surest way to immobilize yourself with frustration.

If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

What do I care about the purring of one who cannot love, like the cat?

I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.

You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.

It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.

We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change you’re the one who has got to change.

In whatever adulation you get, there’s truth and there’s not truth. And wherever they dog you, and they say it was horrible – there’s truth and there’s not truth. It’s human nature to like to read the adulation more.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

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.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.

Until you have cultivated the habit of saying some kind word of those whom you do not admire, you will be neither successful nor happy.

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

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.

Something I’ve realized lately, to my shock, is that I am an optimist, in that I think humans are almost infinitely capable of self-change and self-modification, and that we really can build the future that we want if we’re smart about it.

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.

By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice.

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

Forget the past.

How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before.

And obviously, from our own personal point of view, the principal challenge is a personal challenge.

Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.

I have an existential map. It has ‚You are here‘ written all over it.

It is hard sometimes to always be at the centre of attention, but when you talk about me you also have to talk about the climate.

It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

A ‚No‘ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‚Yes‘ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

Follow your honest convictions and be strong.

The highest reward that God gives us for good work is the ability to do better work.

The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.

I don’t think I get that upset over things.

I could never give relationship advice to anybody!

When I was into my 30s, I became increasingly depressed by rejection letters. I had had the feeling that by the time I was 30, I would be established. But I was not at all. By the time of ‚Lives of Girls and Women,‘ I was into my 40s and I had become more thin-skinned.

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.

I learned to fly a few years ago in England. It’s the only place I’m completely alone – up in the air, detached from everything.

Man has throughout the ages been seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare – something we call truth or God or reality, a timeless state – something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption.

One thing I hope I’ll never be is drunk with my own power. And anybody who says I am will never work in this town again.

I let people fill in the blanks on their own. If they want to think about their ex, that’s fine. If they want to think about maybe who one of my exes is, then that’s fine. And it might not be right, because I’m the only one who knows what these songs are really about. It’s the one shred of privacy I have in the matter.

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.