Since I was 16, I’ve felt a black cloud hangs over me. Since then, I have taken pills for depression.

When the negative thoughts come – and they will; they come to all of us – it’s not enough to just not dwell on it… You’ve got to replace it with a positive thought.

Whenever I make music, it reflects where I’m at mentally.

I like to let things breathe.

We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted.

I don’t think I could think of a single thing that’s more isolating than being famous.

Life is grim, and we don’t have to be grim all the time.

I think a certain amount of stress in life is good. The stress of just working, which takes effort – I think it keeps you going.

Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.

Most men are within a finger’s breadth of being mad.

I was very depressed when I was 19… I would go back to my apartment every day and I would just sit there. It was quiet and it was lonely. It was still. It was just my piano and myself. I had a television and I would leave it on all the time just to feel like somebody was hanging out with me.

You can see neurosis from below – as a sickness – as most psychiatrists see it. Or you can understand it as a compassionate man might: respecting the neurosis as a fumbling and inefficient effort toward good ends.

We have an epidemic of insecure people in our society today.

Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.

I’ve had sleep paralysis.

I think it’s very important to cry in the shower and not in front of them. They need to know that everything’s going to be all right, even when you’re not sure it is.

People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.

Mothers and daughters generally have fairly complex relationships, and ours was made much more so by Mother’s illness. She had Parkinson’s disease, which was not diagnosed for a long time… All that made me very self-protective, because for one thing, I didn’t want to get trapped.

I say there’re no depressed words just depressed minds.

I think every entertainer’s had nights when things go wrong. I mean you can’t remember everything all the time, and especially if you’re having hard times personally, things going on that you – you know, and then people make it worse. And that makes you feel worse.

If a man be gloomy let him keep to himself. No one has the right to go croaking about society, or what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.

‚Fame‘ exhausts me.

It doesn’t take much to make me angry.

Meditation is a great way to keep my body well-centered while juggling shooting schedules and recording sessions.

I’ve had no problem harnessing anger.

When I was 11 I became very depressed. It had a lot to do with the climate and ecological crisis. I thought everything was just so wrong and nothing was happening and there’s no point in anything.

Before you start a goal – let’s take care of our insecurities because they are going to surface when you put yourself in the crucible and you’re suffering.

I don’t digest things with my mind.

Happiness is the cessation of suffering.

Mind over mattress.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come… We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life’s hard times.

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

I just want to retire before I go senile because if I don’t retire before I go senile, then I’ll do more damage than good at that point.

Generally speaking, if a human being never shows anger, then I think something’s wrong. He’s not right in the brain.

People have different emotional levels. Especially when you’re young.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.

You might be tough, but you can only be so tough for so long, you know what I mean? The brain can only take so much damage. The body can only take so much damage.

I’m a super-duper over-analyzer. You mix that with self-doubt and pressure, and that’s never healthy.

I don’t think about the end game. I’ve got lots to occupy my mind. It’s the rage that keeps me going.

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.

Hearing voices no one else can hear isn’t a good sign, even in the wizarding world.

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person.

If I didn’t have my films as an outlet for all the different sides of me, I would probably be locked up.

Silence speaks so much louder than screaming tantrums. Never give anyone an excuse to say that you’re crazy.

In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible.

The answer I found is you stay away from the people who make fun of you, and you join these ad hoc groups who understand your craziness.

Jealousy… is a mental cancer.

Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration.

Since everything is in our heads, we had better not lose them.

I get nervous for everything – literally everything.

If it weren’t for painting, I wouldn’t live; I couldn’t bear the extra strain of things.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

I think that’s why I put my energy into making music. That’s how I get my thoughts out, instead of being crazy all the time.

It’s hard to practice compassion when we’re struggling with our authenticity or when our own worthiness is off-balance.

It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases – one was Alzheimer’s, and the other was knowing I had Alzheimer’s.

I was awfully curious to find out why I didn’t go insane.

Even paranoids have real enemies.

If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.