Libraries raised me.

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?

I don’t have any secrets I need kept any more.

Let go of yesterday.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

What I want for my fans and for the world, for anyone who feels pain, is to lean into that pain and embrace it as much as they can and begin the healing process.

I am absolutely my own biggest critic.

I had my moments of being humiliated, and then I had moments of doing something humiliating. I’m glad I lived out both roles.

Every movie I make teaches me something. That’s why I keep making them.

Some people would like me to be round again.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

I don’t have all the answers.

At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn’t exist except as a part of everything.

You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past – whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever.

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

I owe my solitude to other people.

The more people I reach, the more people there are that have opinions about me. Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can’t even lift them.

There are a lot of things I never did, because I believe in watching those true Hollywood stories and I see how easy it is to lose track of your life.

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

Don’t grow accustomed to living with less, doing less, and being less to the point that you eventually sit back and accept it.

I’m inconsistent, even to myself.

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.

The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

I guess I’m living in the present more than the past.

Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

Change is always tough. Even for those who see themselves as agents of change, the process of starting a new thing can cause times of disorientation, uncertainty and insecurity.

I’m working at trying to be a Christian, and that’s serious business. It’s like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy – it’s serious business.

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent.

One of the very important characteristics of a student is to question. Let the students ask questions.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Governor Romney has a great business background. He is extremely well educated. He has several degrees from Harvard, including, you know, business and including a law degree.

And we are never too old to study the Bible. Each time the lessons are studied comes some new meaning, some new thought which will make us better.

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

A man’s character is his fate.

We are often raised as dependents then given over to teachers. It’s experience and exploration that can transform us and lead to mastery.

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.

When you walk into my classroom, I’m going to give it to you straight, just like in the real world, because that’s the only way to prepare you for the real world.

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries.

My dad seemed comfortable with his decision to be a ‚have-not,‘ but I knew that I wasn’t.

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

People gonna be they own individuals and have they own worlds and I can’t knock it.

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

We become what we repeatedly do.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

We must, I believe, start teaching our children the sanity of nonviolence much earlier.

I’m giving all that I have in this life. I’m opening up my notebook, and I’m saying everything in there out loud.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

How do you know what it’s like to be stupid if you’ve never been smart?

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

Courage – you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn’t want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself.