The human being is a strange mixture of blind instinct, on one hand, and conscience, on the other.

For most of us, relationship with another is based on dependence, either economic or psychological. This dependence creates fear, breeds in us possessiveness, results in friction, suspicion, frustration.

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.

Weak character will neutralize all of the other possible good qualities a person might possess.

I’m not a marketing person. I don’t ask myself questions. I go by instinct.

Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.

All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man’s actions.

Hatred is settled anger.

I even found it difficult to watch myself playing on TV because I couldn’t identify with the person on the screen. I couldn’t get to grips with it. It was as if it was all happening to someone else.

The world can criticize me, but l can always criticize it back.

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

I am sure there’s going to be times when I do things wrong that no one’s going to like and everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish but I know I’m going to go through those times, and it’s just about understanding that that’s going to happen.

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.

The utmost extent of man’s knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

When you stop caring what people think, you lose your capacity for connection. When you’re defined by it, you lose our capacity for vulnerability.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

I have no delusions about my likability in every scenario. I know that in order to get things done the way you want them, oftentimes your position will be unpopular.

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

I am tough, but deep inside my toughness, I like to let people know I’m an old-fashioned mama’s boy.

One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.

I don’t make people bend over backwards, and I don’t like that in people. I am definitely no diva.

If a person doesn’t change, there’s something really wrong with him.

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

Ritual is another word for fear, manifested in a different way.

The separation of church and state is a source of strength, but the conscience of our nation does not call for separation between men of state and faith in the Supreme Being.

As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

The single most powerful thing I can be is to be myself.

I get nervous when I don’t get nervous. If I’m nervous I know I’m going to have a good show.

Frank and explicit – that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and confuse the minds of others.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

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.

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

I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think something’s not good enough, and I won’t stop until I feel like I’ve made it. I’m never satisfied.

There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

People just overshoot trying to find God. They’re going outside and trying everything. They don’t realize that it’s right inside themselves.

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

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

I don’t think I get angry.

No person is important enough to make me angry.

We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.

I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

I don’t have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had.

My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne – to beat her down, hide her.

People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.

To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one’s being added to that being.

Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after.

We’re all insecure, aren’t we? I’m not walking around like I’m macho man or anything.

I’m addicted to placebos.

The best part about being in your thirties is you know what works for you.

I’m getting a wrinkle above my eyebrow because I just can’t stop lifting it, and I love that you know.

Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.