The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

Be content to seem what you really are.

Timidity makes a person modest. It makes him or her say, ‚I’m not worthy of being written up in the record of deeds in heaven or on earth.‘ Timidity keeps people from their good. They are afraid to say, ‚Yes, I deserve it.‘

When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

I’m just trying to be myself. I’m not trying to be anyone else.

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

The way I approach this thing, when I started to get my head screwed on straight and really trying to make something of myself as an artist, when I was 19 or 20, it became more about function for me. Like, what is this song doing to you? What is the function of this type of artform? What is it doing?

One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.

God doesn’t love me any more or less because I had some work done on my face.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

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

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.

The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people.

It’s an endless proving of myself, that I really am a musician, that I have something to offer in the room. That women can be musicians, women can be rock stars, women can be more than an objectified idea of a pop star.

And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren’t any other people living in the world.

Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

I want to be a man who is truthful and who won’t let pride get in the way of my ripping myself open to my partner and saying, ‚Here I am. This is me.‘ I feel there’s something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable.

It’s simple, if it jiggles, it’s fat.

There are definitely elements of experience and stuff that someone who’s my age wouldn’t have. But there are also things that I can do that other people wouldn’t necessarily be able to.

Marriage destroyed my relationship with two wonderful men.

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.

Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn’t accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else’s insistence or someone else’s whim or convenience.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

I’m gonna make what I want to make, and other people are gonna like what they’re gonna like. It doesn’t really matter.

I know who I am, I know what I can and can’t do. I know what I will and won’t do. I know what I’m capable of and I don’t agree to do things that I don’t think I can pull off.

This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way.

You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

At the end of the day, who I really and truly am is a little girl who loved to play the piano.

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.

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?

What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

I worked with someone who told me they’d never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

The self is hateful.

A woman has the age she deserves.

If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.

Your Highest Self only wants you to be at peace. It does not judge, compare, or demand that you defeat anyone or be better than anyone.

The question isn’t, ‚What do we want to know about people?‘, It’s, ‚What do people want to tell about themselves?‘

Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do, the library and journalism, those things made me who I am.

I am two with nature.

In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.

Her body calculated to a millimeter to suggest a bud yet guarantee a flower.

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.

You aren’t normal if you sing to people. You aren’t a normal person. It’s nerve-racking.

I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me.

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.

The people you choose to have around you make all the difference. My family and close friends keep me grounded. You have to have a mind of your own and a strong head on your shoulders. Cricket is the most important thing to me, so the rest of it pales in comparison.

It’s very unnatural to be someone for so many people. But of course it’s very nice.

I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I’m in a world of my own.

It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.

Rituals are important. Nowadays it’s hip not to be married. I’m not interested in being hip.

I’m not intimidated by how people perceive me.

I’d always somehow felt slightly as if I’d been born in the wrong country.

Fashion is an imposition, a reign on freedom.

The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.

I’m super self-critical, which I think is good, because then I get exactly what I want. I’m critical of other people, too – I try not to be, though.