The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.

You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It’s just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.

Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

Isn’t it funny how babies laugh a lot? I read a toddler, a young child laughs 300 times a day. The average adult laughs, like, four times a day. God put it in them. He put the laugh in us, but I think sometimes we let life get us down, you know, have bad breaks, and we lose our breaks.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

I’m reasonably optimistic about the future, especially the future of the United States – for the century, at least.

You have to steal a lot. You have to have a criminal mentality to be a film director.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

I think that cancer is a life form that exists out there, and it exists in us. I think even the concept of healing is a spiritual principle that we have to really look at. I think the word itself is something we ought to get rid of, because it implies that there is illness – that there is something wrong.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

Smiling makes me feel weak and not in control and not powerful and small.

Hatred is blind, as well as love.

Optimism is a kind of heart stimulant – the digitalis of failure.

Fear is exciting for me.

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.

When men and woman die, as poets sung, his heart’s the last part moves, her last, the tongue.

Kissing someone is pretty intimate, actually very intimate, and your heart always kind of skips a beat before you do that.

Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.

If you want to have a life that is worth living, a life that expresses your deepest feelings and emotions and cares and dreams, you have to fight for it.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

I’ve never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

My father was a negative person. He actually taught me to be negative, if that makes any sense. I remember him saying: ‚You know there’s no point in expecting anything good to happen because it won’t.‘ I grew up in such a negative atmosphere.

Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.

There is no unique picture of reality.

Seeing Pax get extra-nervous about which shirt he is going to wear when he meets Aung San Suu Kyi, I get very moved. He rightfully doesn’t get nervous going to a movie premiere; he gets nervous going to meet her.

Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.

Our brains are either our greatest assets or our greatest liabilities.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

I’m half living my life between reality and fantasy at all times.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

This isn’t life in the fast lane, it’s life in the oncoming traffic.

Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.

People always say that you can’t please everybody. I think that’s a cop-out. Why not attempt it? ‚Cause think of all the people you will please if you try.

Money can’t buy life.

Happiness doesn’t depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude.

Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

Facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.

When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.

Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.

Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.

Life is so, so short. Bible says it’s like a vapor.

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.

I believe everyone should have a good death. You know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. Because after all, tears are appropriate on a death bed. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

All the songs I write are about human dynamics, whether it’s with girlfriends, boyfriends, or family.