People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way – in such a way that often nobody believes me!

You better take care of me Lord, if you don’t you’re gonna have me on your hands.

It’s a rather rude gesture, but at least it’s clear what you mean.

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.

Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong.

I think I have to trust that you end up with the person you’re supposed to end up with, and that everything in between is there to teach you stuff.

We misjudge risk if we feel we have some control over it, even if it’s an illusory sense of control.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

He who talks more is sooner exhausted.

For I can raise no money by vile means.

It’s true that obscenity is a matter of taste and in the eye of the beholder.

For a creative writer possession of the ‚truth‘ is less important than emotional sincerity.

It’s not a faith in technology. It’s faith in people.

You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

Dialogue means debates and everyone’s point of view.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.

God has entrusted me with myself.

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

I did my utmost to ensure that everyone below me in the chain of command felt comfortable approaching me with concerns, ideas, thoughts, and even disagreements.

When you’re faced with an opponent, the media asks the questions, and I answer truthfully. I don’t hold back.

I would impress upon your minds the fact that if you want to do a man justice, you should believe what a man says himself rather than what people say he says.

Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.

Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That’s not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that’s what life needs to be – and that if it’s not that, it’s all screwed up. It’s not.

Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that’s where the courage of a leader comes, because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency.

The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.

Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

The intellectual is different from the ordinary man, but only in certain sections of his personality, and even then not all the time.

What makes you a SEAL, what makes you a SEAL is being a good tactician on the battle field, understanding how to shoot, move, and communicate, knowing small unit maneuver warfare. That’s what makes a good SEAL, and so that is the course of instruction that I taught, was getting SEAL platoons ready for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.

How we experience memory sometimes, it’s not linear. We’re not telling the stories to ourselves. We know the story; we’re just seeing it in flashes overlaid.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

Nobody’s ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

I never went to school more than six months in my life, but I can say this: that among my earliest recollections, I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand.

I think one of the basic reasons men make good friends is that they can make up their minds quickly.

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

My definition of country music is really pretty simple. It’s when someone sings about their life and what they know, from an authentic place.

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets.

Never find fault with the absent.

I was terrible in English. I couldn’t stand the subject. It seemed to me ridiculous to worry about whether you spelled something wrong or not, because English spelling is just a human convention – it has nothing to do with anything real, anything from nature.

I was ill, and everyone could see it but me.

I’m actually a very honest person, and sometimes I end up like, ‚Man, I said too much.‘ It’s hard for me not to tell the truth when you ask me.

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

I meet people overseas that know five languages – that the only language I’m comfortable in is English.

It may be the part of a friend to rebuke a friend’s folly.

Ninety-nine percent of the men and women of the FBI… are just professionals. I don’t want Americans, if an FBI agent knocks on their door, to have to be worried about well, is he a Democrat or a Republican? He’s an FBI agent.

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.

The truth is, I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let men sometimes fool themselves.

What can I say? I’m a talker.