My life is not to be somebody else’s impact – you know what I mean?

You are remembered for the rules you break.

I’m not interested in people positioning me next to other artists.

Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment you can grow more surely toward the stars.

He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

I myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven’t belonged to any company or any system. It isn’t easy to live like this in Japan.

If we are to be happy, we must first react against our tendency to follow the line of least resistance, a tendency that causes us either to remain as we are, or to look primarily to activities external to ourselves for what will provide new impetus to our lives.

I think that people just have this core desire to express who they are. And I think that’s always existed.

I’m not intimidated by how people perceive me.

I got teased my entire school life. What they were picking on I don’t even understand.

When you’re just like everybody else, you’ve nothing to offer other than your conformity.

I cry so much less than I used to. I used to be one of the most teary people.

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

I would love to continue in music, with writing… but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don’t need to be blonde when I’m 60!

Teach me to feel another’s woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

I’ve always kinda been a little outcast myself, a little oddball, doin‘ my thing, my own way. And it’s been hard for me to, to be accepted, certainly in the early years of my life.

Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides.

I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.

It’s absolutely normal that different human beings want to go different ways.

The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.

In my research, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call ‚different‘: scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.

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.

You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.

I began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when I didn’t write. I started again at 16 and have no idea why, but it was suddenly the only thing I wanted to do.

Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.

It’s hard to be clear about who you are when you are carrying around a bunch of baggage from the past. I’ve learned to let go and move more quickly into the next place.

What is true belongs to me!

There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

Somewhere deep down there’s a decent man in me, he just can’t be found.

I still learn, but I think it’s the best thing in life to have a kid.

I’m sure the feeling of fear, as long as you can take advantage of it and not be rendered useless by it, can make you extend yourself beyond what you would regard as your capacity. If you’re afraid, the blood seems to flow freely through the veins, and you really do feel a sense of stimulation.

Acting helped me as I was growing up. It helped me learn about myself, helped me travel, helped me understand life, express myself, all those wonderful things. So I’m very, very grateful; it’s a fun job. It’s a luxury.

Even as a child, Muhammad Ali got perverse pleasure out of being different. He liked the attention it got him, but most of all he just liked being himself: odd and independent.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

I think what’s important is for us to decipher what is honest and what is dishonest and be accepting of those things and not operating from fear.

Invest three percent of your income in yourself (self-development) in order to guarantee your future.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

We are wiser than we know.

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.

I used to have a real problem with self-pity. Every time the devil would throw a pity party, I would attend.

Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.

I realize I don’t do a very good job in keeping up to date, but I try to.

Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.

So many people live with anger and unforgiveness, and many of them are Christians.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

Ever since I dated a woman, I know what it is to grab a curve on a woman’s body. Skinny’s not fine when the lights are low.

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.

I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

Eventually you get to this point where you understand what you want to do and get across and sound like.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

I know, to banish anger altogether from one’s breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God’s grace.

You see, I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across – not to just depict life – or criticize it – but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me, you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful.