The thing about the truth is, not a lot of people can handle it.

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it – basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.

There’s a gap between what I want to do, what I do on camera, and what gets edited. Right? So the goal is to try and close the gaps. What’s the biggest compliment is if I read a review and it’s exactly what I wrote down in my diary before ever filming it. That’s really cool. That’s the biggest signifier of closing the gaps.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

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

Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I’ve – if it did occur – that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.

Because we’re actors we can pretend and fake it, but I’d rather the intimate investment was authentic.

Being a full human being is difficult, frightening, and problematical.

I guess I’m living in the present more than the past.

I’m not confused. I’m just well mixed.

If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.

There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, ‚Truth is the daughter of Time.‘

I’ve learned people are watching, so don’t do nothing stupid.

Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.

Breathe in deeply to bring your mind home to your body. Then look at, or think of, the person triggering this emotion: With mindfulness, you can see that she is unhappy, that she is suffering. You can see her wrong perceptions. You can see that she is not beautiful when she says things that are unkind.

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.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

I thought I would try to be gay for a while, but I’m just more sexually attracted to women. But I’m really glad that I found a few gay friends, because it totally saved me from becoming a monk or something.

We do not judge the people we love.

An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do.

People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one’s self on lies and fables.

I don’t see myself in terms of artifice. I see myself as a real person who chooses to live my life in an open way – artistically.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

I think what you’re seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they’ve got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

Politics has always been ugly to me, and yet I accept that as a fact of life.

There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.

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

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.

The problem with EMMA is that it is cost prohibitive for the small investors who were supposed to benefit from the new transparency.

Everyone knows nowadays that people ‚have complexes‘. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.

Once you’ve changed who you are or who you’ve portrayed in your music, the fans, they’ll catch it… Once I feel like the world knows me for anything else but my music, then I feel like I failed.

I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.

I’m really trying to dredge up what one might call intellectual and moral material. For example, when do you realize that you are an American? What age does that happen to you? When do you realize what religion your parents practice? When does it all become conscious? I was interested in exploring all of that.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.

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.

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.

Live truth instead of professing it.

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.

The truth is often terrifying, which I think is one of the motifs of Larry and Andrew’s cinema. The cost of knowledge is an important theme. In the second and third films, they explore the consequences of Neo’s choice to know the truth. It’s a beautiful, beautiful story.

Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.

I approach love differently now that I know it’s hard for it to work out.

Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature.

The question is not, ‚Do you have a problem?‘ The question is, ‚Does the problem have you?‘

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

Your body has space within you that cannot die.

Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.