The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

The self is hateful.

There’s a victory, and defeat; the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

I’m always just surprised when someone writes something about me.

We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.

The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.

No one can give you better advice than yourself.

I am not a second option person. It is that or nothing. If it is not the way I see it I prefer not to see it.

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.

As for my own views, they’ve of course evolved over the years. This conception of ‚renouncing beliefs‘ is very odd, as if we’re in some kind of religious cult. I ‚renounce beliefs‘ practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.

Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.

The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man’s own eyes when they look upon his own person.

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.

Lots of songs aren’t even from my experiences, but they’re about accepting… the dark things about yourself.

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.

In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.

For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?

It would be my guess that Madonna is not a very happy woman. From my own experience, having gone through persona changes like that, that kind of clawing need to be the center of attention is not a pleasant place to be.

I never think about myself as an artist working in this time. I think about it in macro.

It’s easy to forget who you are.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

I am trying to find myself. Sometimes that’s not easy.

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.

I never expect to lose. Even when I’m the underdog, I still prepare a victory speech.

People like to blame others. I think a person should just look at their own situation, look around them, find out what they wish to do, and seek and go and do that. And that’s it.

In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.

No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they’re pretty, even if they aren’t.

It never mattered to me that people in school didn’t think that country music was cool, and they made fun of me for it – though it did matter to me that I was not wearing the clothes that everybody was wearing at that moment. But at some point, I was just like, ‚I like wearing sundresses and cowboy boots.‘

Because I’m small, I’ve been called things from ‚Happy Feet‘ to ‚Little Face.‘

I’ve been to those places where it’s ‚poor, pitiful me.‘

My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people’s kids than I did my own.

There are phases in life which surface at times, and it makes you understand that despite you working hard, everything what you are doing is probably not enough. That’s when you need to look around, and beyond.

Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.

In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.

We grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story and the next, and the next.

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn’t bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn’t have any brains. I didn’t know what I was doing there. That’s why I became an actor.

I’m all about evolution. I’m the first person to judge myself.

I’m never nervous.

Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

All through my writing life, I’ve had this impulse to write autobiographical works.

Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.

I never saw myself as a folk singer.

The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.

Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.

Instead of blaming everyone and everything else for your problems, pray for God to help you take an inventory of what’s been on your mind so you can think about what you’ve been thinking about.

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.

I wish I knew why I am so anguished.

Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.

I’ve learned a lot since I was a new mother. My approach to struggle and shame now is to talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love and reach out to tell your story.

Every time I get in the McLaren I feel more comfortable, my confidence increases and I feel more at home with the team.

You’re not going to say anything about me that I’m not going to say about myself. There’s so many things that I think about myself; if someone really wanted to get at me, they could say this and this and this. So I’m going to say it before they can. It’s the best policy for me.

I have never given adoration to any body except myself.

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.

I change during the course of a day. I wake and I’m one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I’m somebody else.

Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories – and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.