Oh, I’ve always been very… Emotional. ‚Hypersensitive‘ is what they call it, I think.

While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

It is hard sometimes to always be at the centre of attention, but when you talk about me you also have to talk about the climate.

Because you know when you first become famous, you start walking a little different because people are staring at you.

Our personal intelligence is everlasting and divine.

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.

What comes out when life squeezes you? When someone hurts or offends you? If anger, pain and fear come out of you, it’s because that’s what’s inside.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

I don’t believe in ‚thinking‘ old. Although I’ve transitioned through many bodies – a baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, mid-life and older adult – my spirit is unchanged. I support my body with exercise, my mind with reading and writing, and my spirit with the knowing that I am part of the Divine source of all life.

My own dreams fortunately came true in this great state. I became Mr. Universe; I became a successful businessman. And even though some people say I still speak with a slight accent, I have reached the top of the acting profession.

I’m not confused. I’m just well mixed.

I woke up one day and thought: ‚I want to write a book about the history of my body.‘ I could justify talking about my mother because it was in her body that my body began.

I’m not a complete psychopath. Am I partially? Sure. I’ll accept that. But I’m not a complete psychopath.

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

Be not a slave of words.

The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.

Vulnerability is basically uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

It’s human nature to blame someone else for your shortcomings or upsets.

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

I’ve learned that men and women who are living wholehearted lives really allow themselves to soften into joy and happiness. They allow themselves to experience it.

Songs for me are like a message in a bottle. You send them out to the world, and maybe the person who you feel that way about will hear about it someday.

Avoid popularity if you would have peace.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

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

Reversing your treatment of the man you have wronged is better than asking his forgiveness.

I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things.

I don’t really get nervous that much, or if I do, only I know. It’s all inside me. I am good at hiding everything.

The truth is, somebody is always talking about you, so you have to let it go… if it’s not a part of your God-given destiny.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

Many people identify their sense of self with the problems they have, or think they have.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

I think being able to age gracefully is a very important talent. It is too late for me.

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‚always do what you are afraid to do.‘

Your life will be a blessed and balanced experience if you first honor your identity and priority.

It’s hard to be humble, when you’re as great as I am.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

If some years were added to my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

The idea of recognising your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

There have been times that I’ve wept as I’ve gone from city to city and I’ve seen how far people have wandered from God.

Individuals need to be willing to face truth about their attitudes, behaviors, even what we want out of life.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

If you have fear, you are bound by tradition, you follow some leader or guru. When you are bound by tradition, when you are afraid of your husband or your wife, you lose your dignity as an individual human being.

I stopped doing drugs when I was 20. I was finished with drugs before Nirvana even started.

All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.

It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne – to beat her down, hide her.

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

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

I’ve 20,000 hours of clinical practice; you’re not naive after the first few thousand. I’ve helped people deal with things that most people can’t imagine.

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

I am sure there’s going to be times when I do things wrong that no one’s going to like and everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish but I know I’m going to go through those times, and it’s just about understanding that that’s going to happen.

The hardest thing for – not only an artist but for anybody to do is look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge, you know, their own flaws and fears and imperfections and put them out there in the open for people to relate to it.