My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

It’s impossible to live a life totally free of feelings. God created all of us to be emotional creatures, and feelings are a big part of our lives.

Most of us experience a life full of wonderful moments and difficult moments. But for many of us, even when we are most joyful, there is fear behind our joy.

All men hate the nagging.

The heart is forever inexperienced.

Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.

Disneyland is a work of love. We didn’t go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.

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.

So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.

I think it is perfectly natural for any artist to admire intensely and love a young man. It is an incident in the life of almost every artist.

I think ‚The Color Purple‘ is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe.

Everything I read about hitting a midlife crisis was true. I had such a struggle letting go of youthful things and learning how to exist and have enthusiasm while settling into the comfort of an older age.

I never wanted to sing. I just wanted to play rhythm guitar – hide in the back and just play.

Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after.

Let me define a leader. He must have vision and passion and not be afraid of any problem. Instead, he should know how to defeat it. Most importantly, he must work with integrity.

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

Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience.

I always keep my guard up with guys and I guess that can get in the way sometimes. I can make them go through hell.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

I was never particularly fond of my voice.

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

I’m a romantic; a sentimental person thinks things will last, a romantic person hopes against hope that they won’t.

I think I have had so much blessing – I’ve had my brother, who was brilliant – I think my family came closest to making a genius when they made my brother – Bailey was just all of that. He loved me.

I’m totally myself.

I don’t know what acting is, but I enjoy it.

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

I think you get most of the most interesting work done in fields where people don’t think they’re doing art but are merely practicing a craft and working as good craftsmen. Being literate as a writer is good craft, is knowing your job, is knowing how to use your tools properly and not to damage the tools as you use them.

Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.

Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others.

I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

Ever since I first came here in 1963 to fight Henry Cooper, I have loved the people of England.

I like gaps; all my stories have gaps. It seems this is the way people’s lives present themselves.

It all went wrong with football, the thing I loved most of all, and from there, my life slowly fell apart.

Which death is preferably to every other? ‚The unexpected‘.

Overall there’s going to be things I’m not great at.

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

The best part about being in your thirties is you know what works for you.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.

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

Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!

My view is that at a younger age your optimism is more and you have more imagination etc. You have less bias.

You just don’t wake up one day and decide that you need to write songs.

One of the things I definitely think of as a driver of me is fear. And it’s fear of failure, fear of being overtaken.

I never wanted to be a scientist per se. I wanted to be a naturalist.

In the world of money and investing, you must learn to control your emotions.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

That it will never come again is what makes life sweet.

The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability that he has.

I never saw myself as a folk singer.

I was always interested in choreography – in making people think and feel something.

I can be jubilant one moment and pensive the next, and a cloud could go by and make that happen.

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.

I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.

Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don’t know why this one is different, but it is. You don’t know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can’t stop thinking about it.

If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

As long as I’m learning something, I figure I’m OK – it’s a decent day.

All my stepchildren carried the burden of my fame. Sometimes they would read terrible things about me, and I’d worry about whether it would hurt them. I would tell them: ‚Don’t hide these things from me. I’d rather you ask me these things straight out, and I’ll answer all your questions.‘

If we’re really honest with ourselves, most of us will admit that we want to impress people, and this is what’s causing us to do what we do.