My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people’s kids than I did my own.

When I was a kid, I never thought much about football. I thought about following in my family’s footsteps and going into professional wrestling.

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

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

My parents were divorced by the time I was even conscious – like, I don’t remember them ever being together.

I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was 23 and the way I handled that.

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child’s name and how old he or she is.

My three children have brought me great joy.

For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.

Before I was born, my father told my mother, ‚If it’s a boy, he’s going to be a scientist.‘

I did stand-up for my grandparents every day when I was, like, eight.

Patience is key for getting over a breakup. That, and trailing off your interaction after the breakup.

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.

In twenty years I’ve never had a day when I didn’t have to think about someone else’s needs. And this means the writing has to be fitted around it.

Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends.

My ultimate life dream project is my kids. My family.

I’m not an employee who goes to the office every morning at the same time. Then, vacations are needed.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.

Everything I have, my career, my success, my family, I owe to America.

If you are working 50 hours a week in a factory, you don’t have time to read 10 newspapers a day and go back to declassified government archives. But such people may have far-reaching insights into the way the world works.

We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to turn us. We can become consumed by hate and darkness, or we’re able to regain our humanity somehow, or come to terms with things and learn something about ourselves.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

Love is an interesting thing.

We live in a time-crunched world, and just about everything we do seems to be urgent.

Absolutely not. I have no problem with commitment. In fact, I love having someone in my life.

A lot of times, I run a thought experiment: ‚If I were not at Facebook, what would I be doing to make the world more open?‘

Eating is so intimate. It’s very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you’re inviting a person into your life.

Never say anything about yourself you do not want to come true.

My family didn’t have a lot of money, so I worked my heart out to get my degrees. But the minute I graduated, suddenly everyone was asking me, ‚Well, when are you going to get married and start having kids?‘ And the truth is I had no idea how I would balance the expected role of wife and mother with a challenging career.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.

I believe when it comes to love, there’s something intangible about who we are attracted to, and I don’t think I have a pattern.

I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

Some Christians feel guilty when they are doing something that isn’t ‚spiritual.‘ Somehow or another, they feel the need to hurry through the grocery store, dash through the house cleaning, and rush through all the daily aspects of life that seem irrelevant to their faith.

Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn’t they’d be married too.

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 need to keep working on myself for a while.

When Nirvana became popular, you could very easily slip and get lost during that storm. I fortunately had really heavy anchors – old friends, family.

I don’t do research. I never have.

Never marry someone in hope that they’ll change later.

I think the reason I don’t read is because, when I’m reading, I feel like I’m missing out on something else. You know, What are my friends doing? Where’s my girlfriend?

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

No one loves the man whom he fears.

For me, it’s about the way I carry myself and the way I treat other people. My relationship and how I feel about God and what He does for me, is something deeply personal. It’s where I came from, my family, I was brought up in a religious household and that’s very important to me.

My family kinda hit the skids. We were experiencing poverty at that point. We all got a job, where the whole family had to work as security guards and janitors. And I just got angry.

When I was writing ‚Kitchen Confidential,‘ I was in my 40s, I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car.

It’s always wonderful to get to know women, with the mystery and the joy and the depth. If you can make a woman laugh, you’re seeing the most beautiful thing on God’s Earth.

Who, being loved, is poor?

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

Beware the hobby that eats.

Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

I know that I’m not the easiest person to live with. The challenge I put on myself is so great that the person I live with feels himself challenged. I bring a lot to bear, and I don’t know how not to.

The deep, personal material of the latter half of your life is your children. You can write about your parents when they’re gone, but your children are still going to be here, and you’re going to want them to come and visit you in the nursing home.

When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.