Most of the time I spend when I get up in the morning is trying to figure out what is going to happen.

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.

If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?

I write for myself things that I’ve gone through.

What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?

The reason I talk to myself is that I’m the only one whose answers I accept.

The Army will take its lessons learned. They’re excellent at looking into themselves and reflecting on what did we do right, what did we do wrong.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?

In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.

Don’t think in the morning. That’s a big mistake that people make. They wake up in the morning and they start thinking. Don’t think. Just execute the plan. The plan is the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you go work out. Get some.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.

What I see, what I went through, what a friend of mine may have went through, whatever – I rap about it.

Our need for certainty in an endeavor as uncertain as raising children makes explicit ‚how-to-parent‘ strategies both seductive and dangerous.

The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one’s self.

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.

There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.

I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.

I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

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

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.

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

Often I sort of work up and down the manuscript. I sometimes used to go ahead of myself to see what was going to happen next, to make certain it fits what was going to be happening soon.

Somebody’s boring me. I think it’s me.

Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow – that’s vulnerability.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

As you think, so shall you become.

I can never say ‚why‘ about anything I do. I suppose I can say ‚how‘ and ‚when‘ and ‚what.‘ But ‚why‘ is impenetrable to me.

There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, ‚That person I see is a savage monster;‘ instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.

I have the problems of, I must confess, old age.

You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now.

If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.

If you haven’t forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others.

I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.

The self is hateful.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

I used to worry about every little thing, trying to figure out every problem. Well, I realize now how foolish that was. I was no more in control of my life than the man on the moon.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

Perhaps I can say that I am a bit astute, that I can adapt to circumstances, but it is also true that I am a bit naive. Yes, but the best summary, the one that comes more from the inside and I feel most true is this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.

We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that, everyone’s had enough of me to last a month.

Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job, I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: ‚Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don’t you realize that?‘ They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn’t want to enter their minds.

I’m still living at least five parallel lives, honestly! I wonder about it. I have no idea how that happens.

The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.

A game is like a mirror that allows you to look at yourself.

When one’s expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have.

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

The most distressing thing that can happen to a prophet is to be proved wrong. The next most distressing thing is to be proved right.

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

I am in my own head most of the time.

When I was a kid, I had a tendency to criticize. But when I did, my mum would whisk me off to the bathroom to stand in front of a mirror. Ten minutes, never less. To think about how criticism is a poor reflection on the one who criticizes.

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.

I just wanted to write something about running, but I realized that to write about my running is to write about my writing. It’s a parallel thing in me.

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, ‚Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.‘