The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

Keeping score is for games, not friendships.

For a person who grew up in the ’30s and ’40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, ‚Here I am, read me.‘ Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.

When I grow up, I want to be like Balvin.

It is amazing how a new child can refocus one’s direction seconds after its birth.

I was a kind of hyper-intense person in my twenties and very impatient.

I don’t have much positive to say about motor neurone disease. But it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I could still do.

The only way round is through.

I know, to banish anger altogether from one’s breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God’s grace.

I have practically no private life. I’m already used to this and ready for it. Yes, sometimes it is hard, but it is the choice I made.

I think it’s my responsibility, as a person of influence… to sometimes try to do what I can.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

Physical elegance, which is what I am talking about here, comes from the body. This is no superficial matter, but rather the way that man found to honour the way he places his two feet on the ground.

Either you’re the one erasing or you’re the one being erased.

It was weird to be married; you kind of lose your identity. You’re suddenly somebody’s wife. And you’re like, ‚Oh, I’m half of a couple now. I’ve lost me.‘

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

No sanction can stand against ignited minds.

While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

I wake up in the morning and my heart is light, man. It’s not heavy. I don’t have skeletons in the closet on their way out.

I think that as you grow up, as you get older, we can’t get bitter, we can’t get jaded.

I never looked at my mantel and envisioned an MVP trophy sitting there. This is pretty crazy.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.

Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

There are people in the world who have skills and strength and talent that I will never have. Never. These notions that you can ‚be whatever you want to be as long as you want it bad enough‘ are not true. They are fairy tales.

Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.

The first step in a person’s salvation is knowledge of their sin.

Playing in MLS was a great experience. It has boosted my confidence and I feel I have matured as a player.

It is only to the individual that a soul is given.

Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

I used to stutter really badly. Everybody thinks it’s funny. And it’s not funny. It’s not.

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.

I didn’t consider myself a fashion designer at all at the time of punk. I was just using fashion as a way to express my resistance and to be rebellious. I came from the country, and by the time I got to London, I considered myself to be very stupid. It was my ambition to understand the world I live in.

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

Enemies are so stimulating.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

Good intentions never change anything. They only become a deeper and deeper rut.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.

I know I’m a good professional, I know that no one’s harder on me than myself and that’s never going to change, under any circumstances.

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

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

I don’t have the best track record with quotes.

Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.

I’m of the school of thought where if you can’t sort something out for yourself then no one can help you.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

It’s true that I’ve never had a burning desire to rebel against my parents.

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

I’m the kind of person who needs to feel like everything happens for a reason. When you date a guy and it goes badly, that’s horrible. But if you can write a song about it, then it was worth it.

Words are powerful; if you change your words, you can change your life.

It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.

I think what’s important is for us to decipher what is honest and what is dishonest and be accepting of those things and not operating from fear.

Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.

I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don’t recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

My ‚fear‘ is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

It’s very hard to find your own words – and you don’t actually exist until you have your own words.