Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

I’m not frightened of appearing vulnerable.

I think everyone’s inherently snobbish. Things that are very popular are not taken seriously, because the snobbish side of one says, ‚Well, if everyone likes it it can’t be that good.‘ Whereas if only I and a couple of other people like it, then it must be really something special.

Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

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.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

In 80% of the world, energy will be bought where it is economic. You have to help the rest of the world get energy at a reasonable price.

I notice that young men go to the universities in order to become doctors or philosophers or anything, so long as it is a title, and that many go in for those professions who are utterly unfit for them, while others who would be very competent are prevented by business or their daily cares, which keep them away from letters.

Your timeless self does not age and has no fear of the future. Contemplate your physical self and all its possessions, and practice laughing peacefully at it all.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

There are going to be things I’m not going to be great at, times when I make mistakes, 100%.

A man has a tendency to accept you the way you are, while most women immediately start to pick flaws and want to change you.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

Writing is a solitary experience. I’m extremely superstitious. If I talk about the book or name the title out loud before finishing, I feel the energy I need to write will be drained. It’s so intimate, I can’t even share it with my wife.

I’ve never lived my life in the opinion of others. I believe I’m a good person. I believe I’m a good mom. But that’s for my kids to decide, not for the world.

What’s wrong with being a boring kind of guy?

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

I don’t regret anything.

All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.

When you stop caring what people think, you lose your capacity for connection. When you’re defined by it, you lose our capacity for vulnerability.

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

I’m a free spirit.

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

I refuse to feel guilty. I feel guilty about too much in my life but not about money. I went through periods when I had nothing, so somebody in my family has to get stinkin‘ wealthy.

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.

I’ve always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.

I want to be the greatest actor that ever lived, frankly. I’d love that. But I don’t need to be. I just want to be here. That’s it.

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.

I am what I am. A fighter.

We are all different. There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being, but we share the same human spirit.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

I didn’t think Marilyn Monroe was beautiful. It used to worry me. I thought maybe I’m not put together like the other chaps.

You simply have to accept that your demons are a part of you.

In the public eye, girls and women with strong perspectives are hated. If you’re a girl with an opinion, people just hate you. There are still people who are afraid of successful women, and that’s so lame.

I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.

Electricity is really just organized lightning.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

I don’t feel much pressure to fit in. I never have. I’ve always just wanted to do my thing. I have really good friends and good family, and if I don’t fit in somewhere else, I fit in at home.

Fashion is an imposition, a reign on freedom.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

I have met 18 million youth, and each wants to be unique.

I’m not perfect.

You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.

The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people.

The single most powerful thing I can be is to be myself.

People from all over the world come to London wanting to make their own mark on it, and they add to the energy and vitality of the capital. It’s got a bit busier since the ’60s, but the more the merrier!

I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

Lots of songs aren’t even from my experiences, but they’re about accepting… the dark things about yourself.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a ‚one size fits all‘ standard for happiness.

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.

Even if the economy crashes, we will still burn oil.