The personal ego already has a strong element of dysfunction, but the collective ego is, frequently, even more dysfunctional, to the point of absolute insanity.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

One mustn’t close one’s eyes to difficulty and to shortcomings; the more one recognizes them, the less they upset one.

I get naturally uncomfortable when I’m put under a magnifying glass.

He knows my limitations and where I’m a good wife and a good mom.

I put my flaws on front street. So the world accepted my flaws, so I don’t have any flaws.

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.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

I’m very, very serious – I’m serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

I had no talent for science. What was infinitely worse: all my fraternity brothers were engineers.

If you’re always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.

My goal was never to make Facebook cool. I am not a cool person.

I’ve learned that usually, the less I know about other people, the better off I am.

We judge people in areas where we’re vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we’re doing.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

A big ego means that you have some confidence in your abilities, really, and that you’re prepared to take the risk of trying them out.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life.

Love is a state of being.

You don’t lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backwards way of assessing and living life.

Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

It is a big temptation to me, when I create a character for a novel, to say that he is what he is because of faulty wiring, or because of microscopic amounts of chemicals which he ate or failed to eat on that particular day.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

Self-talk, for me, has been the biggest thing in my life. A lot of us have a dialogue that is crap. It’s a crappy dialogue. We live in a world right now that is very external. Everything is very on the surface. Superficial. Everything. And what we’re telling ourselves is what we see on TV.

If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.

I briefly did therapy, but after a while, I realised it is just like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can’t fix the weather – you just have to get on with it.

Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.

To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.

Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.

Power does not change you, it unmasks you.

It’s not to much fun to know yourself too well or think you do – everyone needs a little conceit to carry them through & past the falls.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

It’s hard to be humble, when you’re as great as I am.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

Everything’s intentional. It’s just filling in the dots.

Sometimes, I want to talk on a song and be angry, because I am angry. Then there’s always a part of me that remembers that this record lives past my being angry, and so do I really want to be angry about that? Is that feeling going to have longevity?

If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.

How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before.

I’m not perfect.

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

To me the ego is the habitual and compulsive thought processes that go through everybody’s mind continuously. External things like possessions or memories or failures or successes or achievements. Your personal history.

The things I talk about and explain couldn’t happen – yet, they don’t seem impossible – you could say I talk about the world in an abstract perspective. But then, the world is basically insane – and it’s trying to pass itself off as being a sane place. I show it for what it is.

I more fear what is within me than what comes from without.