The people in my songs are all me.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.

I think I have to trust that you end up with the person you’re supposed to end up with, and that everything in between is there to teach you stuff.

It’s kind of like a challenge to myself to be able to hear somebody else’s hook and kind of interpret the words. Because my own hooks, I already know what I mean when I write them.

If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company.

If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

I am whatever you say I am; if I wasn’t, then why would you say I am.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

I’m so nervous. I’ve always been nervous, ever since I was a kid.

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

Whenever I write a novel, I have a strong sense that I am doing something I was unable to do before. With each new work, I move up a step and discover something new inside me.

I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.

Love is a state of being.

I’m terrified of losing my voice.

Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

Lyrics are the only thing to do with music that haven’t been made easier technically.

I’m not a natural performer or exhibitionist. When I was younger, I hated the focus, and it made me feel strange.

I was in a terrible mess in my childhood.

A shady business never yields a sunny life.

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.

Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.

I like to be creative.

We’re always looking over our shoulders, ‚what they will think, what the press will think, what will this one – am I making the right career move?‘ When you’re young you have to do all that to survive, I suppose.

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.‘

Every human being is under construction from conception to death.

I feel confident imposing change on myself. It’s a lot more fun progressing than looking back. That’s why I need to throw curve balls.

And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don’t think anyone in my family would really feel I’d done them an injustice by saying that. We didn’t see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.

Know that any and all thoughts that you have regarding your own skills, interests, and inclinations are valid. To reinforce the validity of your thoughts, keep them private. Tell yourself that they’re between you and God.

I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

I’ve realized that being happy is a choice. You never want to rub anybody the wrong way or not be fun to be around, but you have to be happy. When I get logical and I don’t trust my instincts – Thats when I get in trouble.

When you’re just like everybody else, you’ve nothing to offer other than your conformity.

There is a piece of me that likes to fondly imagine my maverick and rebellious nature. But, more accurately, I like to have a nice and cosy institution that I can rub up against a little bit.

Men who have reached and passed forty-five, have a look as if waiting for the secret of the other world, and as if they were perfectly sure of having found out the secret of this.

Individuals need to be willing to face truth about their attitudes, behaviors, even what we want out of life.

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.

I still learn, but I think it’s the best thing in life to have a kid.

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

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

Conscious of not being able to separate myself from my time, I have decided to become part of it.

By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.

I disagree with everything I used to say.

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I’m giving you myself in the music. There’s where the connection comes from; you can’t Twitter that.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don’t know why this one is different, but it is. You don’t know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can’t stop thinking about it.

No man is hurt but by himself.

I’ve always had a problem with the average macho man – they’ve always been a threat to me.

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.

When I look back over my life it’s almost as if there was a plan laid out for me – from the little girl who was so passionate about animals who longed to go to Africa and whose family couldn’t afford to put her through college. Everyone laughed at my dreams. I was supposed to be a secretary in Bournemouth.