The single most powerful thing I can be is to be myself.

It’s still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out.

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.

I’ve done many ads because that’s my new career. It’s an inspiring extension for my mind.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

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

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

What is a fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself – for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.

I don’t like it when people who are young act like they’re 40. That’s taking too much on. Putting up a shield and trying to act like you’re so mature or whatever – I don’t try to act mature. Some people might say I’m mature for my age, but it’s not something I’m trying to do, you know? I’m just me.

I love that I can tell the truth and have people laugh at it.

I like pushing boundaries.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others‘ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

My life is real.

Love always ends differently and it always begins differently – especially with me.

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.

All I can do is try to create my own brand and have people appreciate me for that.

Those who know me know I’m passionate about lists, and top of my list of priorities is my family. My wife Joan and I do not consider our legacy to our children to be wealth or fame but the opportunity to pursue happiness by following their own path.

Character is power.

I look like a casual, laid-back guy, but it’s like a circus in my head.

If your inner life is not producing what you would like on the outside, don’t be discouraged… just be willing to change.

I don’t mind telling a dark side.

Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That’s not a guess, it’s a guarantee. With pride, it’s not a matter of ‚if‘ we will fall, but ‚when.‘ There are no exceptions.

They’re right to think that about me, because I’m the person most likely to sleep with my female fans, I genuinely love other women. And I think they know that.

I think my worst problem is actually living in the moment and understanding everything that’s going on. I feel like I’m in my own bubble.

If you choose to do something, attack it. You can hate me, but there’s one thing you can’t say about me – that I didn’t attack it.

I wrote ‚Channel Orange‘ in two weeks. The end product wasn’t always that gritty, real-life depiction of the real struggle that happened.

Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I’ve done it all – I’m good. Now, it’s about setting an example for others to follow. I can’t just talk it – I have to live it.

The game is changing with songs like ‚Earned It‘ as opposed to it changing me.

I don’t go around thinking I’m Ray Bradbury all the time.

I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.

He who knows himself is enlightened.

We forge the chains we wear in life.

I grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.

A ‚No‘ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‚Yes‘ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

Sadly, the truth is, there aren’t many people who can be put in high positions who won’t start thinking highly of themselves.

I don’t want followers.

To live is to find out for yourself what is true, and you can do this only when there is freedom, when there is continuous revolution inwardly, within yourself.

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

The hardest thing for – not only an artist but for anybody to do is look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge, you know, their own flaws and fears and imperfections and put them out there in the open for people to relate to it.

I’m not a centerfold.

You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.

I don’t want to be something that just comes and goes.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

It’s not an easy course. It’s not designed to be. We’re not here to get you in touch with your inner child.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.

I stopped doing drugs when I was 20. I was finished with drugs before Nirvana even started.

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

Keeping score is for games, not friendships.

I feel real good because it’s about representing the young world and how to uplift each other and how to push us to be greater and make sure we don’t fall or get trapped or get in trouble, you know what I mean. Stay focused, you know what I mean.

A lot of times, people make other people responsible for their joy: ‚You’re not making me happy, you’re not doing this, you’re not doing that.‘

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

When I was growing up, I wasn’t an extrovert. If anything, I was an introverted kid and a very average pupil at school. I was very quiet.

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.

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.

Hatred is self-punishment.

I never wanted to write the sort of song that said, ‚Look at how abnormal and crazy and out there I am, man!‘