My one big regret is that I didn’t play on for ten more years.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.

For a long time, I had the idea that I would do a certain amount of work the best I could, and then I would reach a comfort zone, and I wouldn’t be pushed to write more. I would become a different person. It’s a surprise to me that this hasn’t happened. Your body ages, but your mind is the same.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

I more fear what is within me than what comes from without.

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

Every single one of us has a few months here or there that feel like dark months.

Finality is not the language of politics.

When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

I’m not a regrets-type person.

I didn’t leave bodybuilding until I felt that I had gone as far as I could go. It will be the same with my film career. When I feel the time is right, I will then consider public service. I feel that the highest honor comes from serving people and your country.

One of my proudest moments is I didn’t sell my soul for the sake of popularity.

I’m not a marketing person. I don’t ask myself questions. I go by instinct.

Each life makes its own immitation of immortality.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

If you make up your own mind, you can only blame yourself.

You have to be able to accept failure to get better.

If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

The people of Northern Ireland have sorted out my whole life.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

Since the team understands that the leader is de facto in charge, in that respect, a leader has nothing to prove. But in another respect, a leader has everything to prove: Every member of the team must develop the trust and confidence that their leader will exercise good judgment, remain calm, and make the right decisions when it matters most.

We cannot live being obsessed with what other people think about us. It’s impossible to live like that. Not even God managed to please the entire world.

I sometimes have a tendency to walk on the dark side.

Some people would like me to be round again.

Make no mistake about why these babies are here – they are here to replace us.

A woman has the age she deserves.

Chaos is a friend of mine.

Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

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

I will not be concerned at other men’s not knowing me; I will be concerned at my own want of ability.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

I just usually go with my own taste. If I like something, and it happens to be against the law, well, then I might have a problem.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

Playing Etta James in the movie ‚Cadillac Records‘ really changed me. It was a darker character, and I realized that if anything is too comfortable, I want to run from it. It’s no fun being safe.

I’m kind of fascist with myself, you know.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

Everyone is different. Everyone has different teams they’ve played on, coaches they’ve played for.

Every human being is under construction from conception to death.

The faults of a superior person are like the sun and moon. They have their faults, and everyone sees them; they change and everyone looks up to them.

Be happy with being you. Love your flaws. Own your quirks. And know that you are just as perfect as anyone else, exactly as you are.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‚I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.‘

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

God created man, but I could do better.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are – that is the fact.

The die is cast.

I have discovered that just because we grow weaker physically as we age, it doesn’t mean that we must grow weaker spiritually.

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‚people.‘ People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war… Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.

That’s something I think is growing on me as I get older: happy endings.

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.