Real life is the life that’s in you, not your circumstances, like where you live or what job you have or who you’re in relationship with.

My father was a mean, controlling and manipulative person for most of his life. He was unpredictable and unstable.

I’m just trying to be myself. I’m not trying to be anyone else.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

I don’t think I’m an unlucky person.

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.

I’ve never been pregnant, so I just feel God didn’t mean for me to have kids so that everybody else’s children could be mine.

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

The deepest desire of the human spirit is to be acknowledged.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

Vanity is the healthiest thing in life.

To be ashamed of one’s immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one’s morality.

Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.

‚Perfection‘ to me is, I walk away from a situation and say, ‚I did everything I could do right there. There was nothing more that I could do.‘ I was a hundred percent, like the meter was at the top. There was nothing else I could have done. You know? Like, I worked as hard as I possibly could have. That’s perfection.

I don’t want to tell President Obama how to make a speech. He’s a much better speech maker than I am. But I think always to tell the truth in a sometimes blatant way, even though it might be temporarily unpopular, is the best approach.

You don’t lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

I’m not intimidated by how people perceive me.

True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self elements. There’s no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected. Once you are aware of that you are no longer caught in the idea that you are a separate entity.

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

You lose your individuality a huge amount when you have no money, and I certainly had that experience.

People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.

I’ve noticed a terrible thing, which is I will agree to anything if it’s far enough in the future.

I had to come from something, come from a place that was negative and positive but the majority of it is a negative place.

I enjoy competition. I enjoy challenges. If a challenge is in front of me and it appeals to me, I will go ahead and conquer it.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‚I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.‘

One of the most important decisions you’ll ever make is choosing the kind of universe you exist in: is it helpful and supportive or hostile and unsupportive? Your answer to this question will make all the difference in terms of how you live your life and what kind of Divine assistance you attract.

Where would I be without baseball? Who am I without baseball?

Be not a slave of words.

To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.

The people who truly know me know what I’m like. There have been people who try to say things that aren’t fair, and I check them. And then they don’t like me because I checked them.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

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.

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.

Life cannot be without relationship, but we have made it so agonizing and hideous by basing it on personal and possessive love. Can one love and yet not possess? You will find the true answer not in escape, ideals, beliefs but through the understanding of the causes of dependence and possessiveness.

Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.

I know that I always wanted things. I was always proud of my people, proud of my home, but I always wanted more. I think most people do.

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.

I’m my own worst critic, and if I don’t pull off what I think I wanted to do in my head, then I won’t be a happy girl.

It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

I think that I’m perfect.

You don’t have to give way to careless speech or complaining. You don’t have to let your feelings get in the way of what God wants to do in your life.

The conscience can be a strong guide in life if we allow it.

Things do not always happen the way I would like them to happen, and I had better get used to that.

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

Deficiency motivation doesn’t work. It will lead to a life-long pursuit of try to fix me. Learn to appreciate what you have and where and who you are.

True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.

Your entire life only happens in this moment. The present moment is life itself. Yet, people live as if the opposite were true and treat the present moment as a stepping stone to the next moment – a means to an end.

I always put myself out there. I’m not afraid to commit to something.

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

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

I’m only as good as my last word, my last hook, my last bridge.

Now that I understand that I’m an addict, I definitely have compassion for my mother. I get it.

Buddhism teaches us not to try to run away from suffering. You have to confront suffering. You have to look deeply into the nature of suffering in order to recognize its cause, the making of the suffering.

It’s easier to aim to please and say what others want to hear than to form an opinion and fight for it, even if it means taking a risk or losing your job.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.