There are a lot of things I never did, because I believe in watching those true Hollywood stories and I see how easy it is to lose track of your life.

It’s hard for anybody who’s been with me not to feel starved for affection when I’m making love to my ideas. Maybe it’s not meant for me to settle down and be married.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

No one gets away with anything, ever, so take responsibility for your own life.

I was never particularly fond of my voice.

I was in my late thirties when my eyes were opened to truth in God’s Word that showed me I wasn’t living the abundant life Jesus died for me to have. I had a very negative mindset and was miserable most of the time because of the abuse I had experienced throughout my childhood.

My life is not to be somebody else’s impact – you know what I mean?

I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.

You may make some mistakes – but that doesn’t make you a sinner. You’ve got the very nature of God on the inside of you.

The best advice comes from people who don’t give advice.

I have surrounded myself with very smart people.

I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.

People make jokes about my bosoms, why don’t they look underneath the breasts at the heart? It’s obvious I’ve got big ones and if people want to assume they’re not mine, then let them.

Live the life you’ve dreamed.

I allow myself to fail. I allow myself to break. I’m not afraid of my flaws.

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

I’ve been searching for ways to heal myself, and I’ve found that kindness is the best way.

I am proud of having done what I’ve done. Very proud.

People have so many hang-ups about how other people live their lives. People always want to keep you in a little box, or they need to label you and fix you in time and location.

If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.

I kinda live where I find myself.

I’ve always felt that if I examine myself too much, I’ll find out what I know and don’t know, and I’ll burst the bubble. I’ve gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I’d rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

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.

Satan wants us to constantly focus on everything that is wrong with us and look at how far we still have to go. But God desires for us to rejoice in how far we have already come.

My overall look on things is a lot more mature than it used to be.

I began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when I didn’t write. I started again at 16 and have no idea why, but it was suddenly the only thing I wanted to do.

When I was young, I could not imagine being old. My mother said, and the doctor confirmed, that I had an unusual amount of energy; and it followed me into young adulthood.

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

The more I see the less I know for sure.

My father wasn’t around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, ‚Why me? Why don’t I have a father? Why isn’t he around? Why did he leave my mother?‘ But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, ‚I don’t know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?‘

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.

I have trouble with letting go. That’s my problem.

Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

Only the insecure strive for security.

My music seems to have a bigger mission than I have, which is very soothing but also very strange because people see more in me than I see, which can be terrifying.

If you don’t know your full-throttle history, the whole story of how you came to where you are, it’s kind of hard to put things together.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don’t recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.

It’s certainly not wrong to want to be a better person. God gave us that desire.

I don’t know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

I really have no interest in myself.

That is my wish, hope, instruction for all of you: Take your education seriously, okay? Always do that. Because I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for my education.

Never complain. Never explain.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.

You can live your life angry, bitter, mad at somebody or even guilty, not letting go of your own mistakes, but you won’t receive the good things God has in store.

Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what you’re doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving something outside yourself power over your happiness. You can choose to not let little things upset you.

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.

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.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.

If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.

I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end… I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.

I’ve had no contact with my daughter for years. That’s her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don’t want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‚I’m a representative.‘

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

I can do whatever I want.

Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.