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

To live is to think.

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Every human has four endowments – self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.

A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

I can’t jump the highest. I’m obviously not the biggest, not the strongest.

Your emotions are very unstable and should never be the foundation for direction in your life.

I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again – as I always am when I write.

People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

In one way, I suppose, I have been ‚in denial‘ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.

I would love to continue in music, with writing… but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don’t need to be blonde when I’m 60!

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

I am not saying I am the best manager in the world. But I’m quite good.

When I was into my 30s, I became increasingly depressed by rejection letters. I had had the feeling that by the time I was 30, I would be established. But I was not at all. By the time of ‚Lives of Girls and Women,‘ I was into my 40s and I had become more thin-skinned.

You’re looking at a middle-class guy. I am who I am.

Sometimes I’m fascinated with how famous my work could be while I’m not so famous.

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

I’m just like you – I want to be a good human being. I’m doing my best, and I’m working at it. And I’m trying to be a Christian. I’m always amazed when people walk up to me and say, ‚I’m a Christian.‘ I always think, ‚Already? You’ve already got it?‘ I’m working at it. And at my age, I’ll still be working at it at 96.

I was a thug.

There’s a victory, and defeat; the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

Don’t be afraid to see what you see.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They’re only powerful when you got your back turned.

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.

I’m a genetic optimist.

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 was asked to act when I couldn’t act. I was asked to sing ‚Funny Face‘ when I couldn’t sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn’t dance – and do all kinds of things I wasn’t prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

People say you have to hit rock bottom, and, I can tell you, almost dying is as rock bottom as it gets.

Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can. Always stay near me, for tomorrow I will have much to do and more than I ever had, and tomorrow blood will leave my body above the breast.

Testing oneself is best when done alone.

The more you seek the uncomfortable, the more you will become comfortable.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection – you cannot cope with the future.

I’m not a regrets-type person.

I’m sure like everyone else I’m not always the happiest if I don’t do a good job in quali or the race or whatever, so I think beating myself up sometimes makes me work harder.

If you have an enemy, then learn and know your enemy, don’t just be mad at him or her.

I know what I believe, I know what I want to do, and I’m just comfortable saying it, and laying it out there.

I don’t have any regrets. I made all my own decisions.

The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.

A game is like a mirror that allows you to look at yourself.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

I don’t regret anything.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy.

I think I have a dualistic nature.

Control your own destiny! Control your own destiny!

Men take only their needs into consideration – never their abilities.

Nearly all the things I do that are of any merit at all start off just being good fun, and I think I’m sort of building up to doing something else quite soon.

We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.