One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.

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

In the child, consciousness rises out of the depths of unconscious psychic life, at first like separate islands, which gradually unite to form a ‚continent,‘ a continuous landmass of consciousness. Progressive mental development means, in effect, extension of consciousness.

It is a most delightful reflection that if I come to the throne of God in prayer, I may feel a thousand defects, but yet there is hope. I usually feel more dissatisfied with my prayers than with anything else I do.

I change during the course of a day. I wake and I’m one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I’m somebody else.

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

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

There’s no difference between one’s killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.

I still consider it a summer job, though. So, I try to maintain that summer job as long as I can. But it’s exciting to be able to have the opportunity to do things I always dreamed of as a kid.

Not being afraid to be wrong – I had to learn how to do that.

People tend to play in their comfort zone, so the best things are achieved in a state of surprise, actually.

I made my fair share of mistakes.

I guess I have a little bit of an ego. I’m confidently cocky, you might say.

Mine is better than ours.

To become ‚unique,‘ the challenge is to fight the hardest battle which anyone can imagine until you reach your destination.

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

I never fall in love.

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

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.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one’s heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.

We humans are self-absorbed by nature, and spend most of our time focusing inwardly on our emotions, on our wounds, on our fantasies.

All of us knows, not what is expedient, not what is going to make us popular, not what the policy is, or the company policy – but in truth each of us knows what is the right thing to do. And that’s how I am guided.

‚Bellyache‘ is totally fictional. I like writing about things that aren’t real. The song is about not trusting anyone and then putting trust in yourself and realizing that you don’t know what you are doing, either. Or realizing that things you do with a group of people that you think are cool in the moment are ultimately all on you.

In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind – in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self.

It’s more interesting for me to figure out how to be superior in areas where I’m naive, where I’m a novice.

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.

What a liberation to realize that the ‚voice in my head‘ is not who I am. ‚Who am I, then?‘ The one who sees that.

You cannot let where you are today cause you to get stuck. I’m going to be my best right now. That’s what faith is all about.

I hated to be treated as a child. I thought it was the worst situation.

No such thing as a man willing to be honest – that would be like a blind man willing to see.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

If I hit a man, his head is gonna go into the bleachers.

It creeps me out sometimes to think of the person I was. I was a terrible person. I was mean to people.

Every one of my regrets has produced a song I’m proud of.

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

To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.

I wanted to imbue Ziggy with real flesh and blood and muscle, and it was imperative that I find Ziggy and be him.

Sometimes when you’ve had a long series of disappointing things happen, you can get into the very bad habit of just expecting more of what you’ve already had.

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

I don’t crave applause. I’m not one of those guys who comes alive on stage. I’m much more alive at home, I think.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Well, I think we tried very hard not to be overconfident, because when you get overconfident, that’s when something snaps up and bites you.

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

I have no delusions about my likability in every scenario. I know that in order to get things done the way you want them, oftentimes your position will be unpopular.

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.

You can’t talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into.

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It’s because I’m not quite an atheist and it worries me. There’s that little bit that holds on: ‚Well, I’m almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.‘

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by his heart, and his friends can only read the title.

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

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

If we live a self-directed, self-motivated, self-centered life, always needing to get our own way, then we’re going to be miserable. In fact, many times we believe it’s our problems that are making us unhappy when, in reality, it’s because we’re focused on ourselves!

My work is about my life, and what I want to do with it.

Control your own destiny! Control your own destiny!