Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

You don’t look out there for God, something in the sky, you look in you.

I like to take every day just searching my own heart, making sure that I’m on course, and I’m doing what God wants me to do. I’m real good with not looking to the critics and looking straight ahead.

I created myself. I have taught myself so much.

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.

Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.

Many people identify their sense of self with the problems they have, or think they have.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

Boys do cry, but I don’t think I shed a tear for a good chunk of my teenage years.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.

I remember being in Japan when Destiny’s Child put out ‚Independent Women,‘ and women there were saying how proud they were to have their own jobs, their own independent thinking, their own goals. It made me feel so good, and I realized that one of my responsibilities was to inspire women in a deeper way.

I’ve been careful in love. I’ve been careless in love. And I’ve had adventures I wouldn’t trade for anything.

The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it.

Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.

I believe with all my heart that America remains ‚the great idea‘ that inspires the world. It is a privilege to be born here. It is an honor to become a citizen here. It is a gift to raise your family here, to vote here, and to live here.

My affection for Taiwan… is witnessed by everyone. My wife is Taiwanese and I am a son-in-law of Taiwan. I am half Taiwanese.

Most of my young years were spent under the boots of the military.

I was impressed with what someone like Karl Lagerfeld built and did and the house that he made, but there was never really a female figure I wanted to emulate.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

I have the ’77 Million Paintings‘ running in my studio a lot of the time. Occasionally I’ll look up from what I’m doing and I think, ‚God, I’ve never seen anything like that before!‘ And that’s a real thrill.

Life is tragic. You are tiny and flawed and ignorant and weak, and everything else is huge, complex, and overwhelming.

If you’re trying too hard to be the girl next door, you’re not going to be.

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.

I felt I had to solve everyone’s problems.

We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.

If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and lone and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors.

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.

I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I’m just trying to create a good one for myself.

Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don’t have names for what they are or haven’t identified them all. We can’t pinpoint exactly what makes each city’s people unique yet.

The life so short, the craft so long to learn.

The loss of life will be irreplaceable.

My moms always told me, ‚How long you gonna play the victim?‘ I can say I’m mad and I hate everything, but nothing really changes until I change myself.

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

The future is called ‚perhaps‘, which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.

My inspiration is R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, and Prince – for the vocals, anyway.

Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.

There’s place and means for every man alive.

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.

I keep working because I learn something new all the time.

I made my first white women friends in college; they loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered.

I’m not frightened of appearing vulnerable.

When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways – either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength. Thanks to the teachings of Buddha, I have been able to take this second way.

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.

Oh, I’ve always been very… Emotional. ‚Hypersensitive‘ is what they call it, I think.

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.

If all you’re doing is grinding for the man, it’s going to burden you. Once you say, ‚Hey, I’m grinding for the man, but I’m putting money away, and this is part of my exit strategy,‘ you’re working for you.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‚always do what you are afraid to do.‘

He not busy being born is busy dying.

There are certain things that bother me and certain things that don’t. Personal attacks on me? I think I’m just so used to it.

We don’t have to let extremists define us.

We all have experiences in our lives that change us, and we all learn from people, like my dad, but at the end of the day, it’s only us. And we’re only responsible to make ourselves happy.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.