Naturally, everybody has certain things they wish they hadn’t done in life. They wish they hadn’t kicked their dog when they were ten or something.

Even as you make progress, you need the discipline to keep from backtracking and sabotaging the success as it’s happening.

I’ve learned never to say never.

Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness. If it doesn’t feel vulnerable, the sharing is probably not constructive.

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

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.

Upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.

I fear that many a man’s good resolutions only need the ordinary fire of daily life to make them melt away. So, too, with fine professions and the boastings of perfection which abound in this age of shams.

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

Now I realize that from ’72 through to about ’76, I was the ultimate rock star. I couldn’t have been more rock star.

Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win.

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

When you learn about the teaching and the practice of another tradition, you always have a chance to understand your own teaching and practice.

Shall I, that have destroyed my Preservers, return home?

All I can do is be me, whoever that is.

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

I admire people who destroy themselves.

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

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.

When you realize who you live for, and who’s important to please, a lot of people will actually start living. I am never going to get caught up in that. I’m gonna look back on my life and say that I enjoyed it – and I lived it for me.

A lot of people like to do certain things, but they’re not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything.

Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it.

I walk tall; I got a tall attitude.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

Suppose you could gain everything in the whole world, and lost your soul. Was it worth it?

The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.

Once I realized that right thinking is vital to victorious living, I got more serious about thinking about what I was thinking about, and choosing my thoughts carefully.

Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems – most life situations are – but find out if you have a problem at this moment. Do you have a problem now?

Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that’s true of everyone, don’t you?

A man’s own judgment should be the final appeal in all that relates to himself.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining, faultfinding, and a negative, judgmental attitude.

If I read a book that impresses me, I have to take myself firmly by the hand, before I mix with other people; otherwise they would think my mind rather queer.

Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?

An author writes a book, and that’s the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

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

The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.

As a vulnerability researcher, the greatest barrier I see is our low tolerance for vulnerability. We’re almost afraid to be happy. We feel like it’s inviting disaster.

The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities.

Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We’ve been so busy damning ourselves for years. We’ve done it all, and yet we don’t take credit for it.

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

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

Why am I a star? It can’t be because of looks.

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.

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.

None of the records I make are ever a deliberate construction – they’re always an expression of who I am at the time and where I am in my life.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

Even though I was very shy, I found I could get onstage if I had a new identity.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

I used to feel unsafe right in the moment of an accomplishment – I felt the ground fall from under my feet because this could be the end. And even now, while everyone is celebrating, I’m on to the next thing. I don’t want to get lost in this big cushion of success.

The happiest part of a man’s life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

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

You have to just make the choices you make in life. I made the choices I made because I believed they were right for me.

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.

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you’ve closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.