I’ve suffered through depression and anxiety my entire life.

I had slumps that lasted into the winter.

If I feel anxious every time someone is staring at me, well, I can’t control what they stare at, but my reaction is, I’m just not going to go outside the house. I’m going to stay in and chill. And when I do go out, I understand what comes along with that.

What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

I look like a casual, laid-back guy, but it’s like a circus in my head.

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 been proven by quite a few studies that plants are good for our psychological development. If you green an area, the rate of crime goes down. Torture victims begin to recover when they spend time outside in a garden with flowers. So we need them, in some deep psychological sense, which I don’t suppose anybody really understands yet.

The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.

I believe that everyone experiences depression to some degree at some time in their lives. And there are probably millions of people who live with a low level of sadness and heaviness day in and day out.

It’s very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.

Isn’t it funny how babies laugh a lot? I read a toddler, a young child laughs 300 times a day. The average adult laughs, like, four times a day. God put it in them. He put the laugh in us, but I think sometimes we let life get us down, you know, have bad breaks, and we lose our breaks.

The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.

I wanted to write when I was young, but people said it was impossible. Then my parents locked me in a mental institution – they said I was crazy and would never make a living from writing.

The dieting wars have got to stop.

As we dread any disease that undermines the health of the body, so should we deplore contention, which is a corroding canker of the spirit.

We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It’s a death trap.

Whenever I make music, it reflects where I’m at mentally.

As a lifestyle you always being the focal point is innately unhealthy.

We do not know what love is. We know the symptoms of it, the pleasure, the pain, the fear, the anxiety and so on. We try to solve the symptoms, which becomes a wandering in darkness. We spend our days and nights in this, and it is soon over in death.

A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.

I think every entertainer’s had nights when things go wrong. I mean you can’t remember everything all the time, and especially if you’re having hard times personally, things going on that you – you know, and then people make it worse. And that makes you feel worse.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

It’s very inexpensive to give a compliment.

If I’d found out that Norman Mailer liked me. I’d have killed myself.

Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.

If you cannot concentrate, you are not so happy.

Cycling is a joy and faster than many other modes of transport, depending on the time of day. It clears the head.

I wonder how many decisions we make every day. I believe it’s probably hundreds. We decide whether or not to get out of bed, what we’ll eat, what we’ll do, what we’ll think about, what we’ll say… and on and on.

Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.

Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.

Jiu Jitsu is a great workout both mentally and physically. You want to be strong for it and flexible for it.

The healthy man does not torture others – generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

When I was born, the economy wasn’t in a great state; it was the Depression, and my father had to be quick to try and find work.

With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.

I think beating myself up sometimes and knowing I am not happy when I do it makes me work harder to do a good job.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

Sometimes, women in families put themselves last until it manifests itself in their own health.

If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.

Ain’t nothing like a good cry.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

What keeps me up at night? Anxiety. Anxiety, the inability to go to sleep, it’s quite literally that.

It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours.

I don’t think about the end game. I’ve got lots to occupy my mind. It’s the rage that keeps me going.

If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.

Become slower in your journey through life. Practice yoga and meditation if you suffer from ‚hurry sickness.‘ Become more introspective by visiting quiet places such as churches, museums, mountains and lakes. Give yourself permission to read at least one novel a month for pleasure.

If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.

I get nervous for everything – literally everything.

Where fear is, happiness is not.

I calculate that I took 20,000 punches, but I earned millions and kept a lot of it. I may talk slow, but my mind is OK.

Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear.

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.

Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.

I’ve often said there’s nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.

As a human being, anger is a part of our mind. Irritation also part of our mind. But you can do – anger come, go. Never keep in your sort of – your inner world, then create a lot of suspicion, a lot of distrust, a lot of negative things, more worry.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

I don’t know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

Pound’s crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don’t put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.