There is something curiously boring about somebody else’s happiness.

I sang a song at my sister’s wedding. My mother forced me into that, too. But that one felt all right.

Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experience, but that’s not where I live.

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn’t know it had a name.

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.

When you are young, you cannot imagine being disabled. You imagine you would conquer it somehow. As I’ve got older, I can imagine it; I can see how life narrows in. I feel compassion for my mother now.

I don’t think culture is something you can describe.

May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

The more centuries that I am able to score, the happier I will be.

As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current less-than-fulfilling lives. We want to be happier, more loving, forgiving and connected with the people around us.

When I was 11, the whole world was closed to me. I just felt I was on the outside of the world.

I think happiness is a goal all of us can agree on. Let’s face it – we all would like to be happy.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

It’s possible to love a human being if you don’t know them too well.

On a spiritual level, it’s as though with my sighted eye I see what’s before me, and with my unsighted eye I see what’s hidden. It’s illuminated life more than darkened it.

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

I don’t think there’s an option for me to fall in love slowly or at medium speed. I either do, or I don’t.

I grew up in a very nice house in Houston, went to private school all my life and I’ve never even been to the ‚hood. Not that there’s anything wrong with the ‚hood.

God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness in heaven, and if it takes my dog being there, I believe he’ll be there.

My songs have always been frustrating themes, relationships that I’ve had. And now that I’m in love, I expect it to be really happy, or at least there won’t be half as much anger as there was.

I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe, that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.

It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.

For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

Boys do cry, but I don’t think I shed a tear for a good chunk of my teenage years.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That’s not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that’s what life needs to be – and that if it’s not that, it’s all screwed up. It’s not.

I can be almost terminally grief-stricken because things are so dire, but at the same time, there’s a real lightheartedness about just the recoverability of life, of how things change, how they’re not the same, ever again.

We all have to live together, so we might as well live together happily.

It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.

I’m a movie maker, but I have the same feelings as the average guy out there.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

We have communion with Christ in His thoughts, views, and purposes; for His thoughts are our thoughts according to our capacity and sanctity. Believers take the same view of matters as Jesus does; that which pleases Him pleases them, and that which grieves His grieves them also.

Love is when the other person’s happiness is more important than your own.

We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at the same time angry with him.

It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.

Everything is clearer when you’re in love.

We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics.

Falling in love and having a relationship are two different things.

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.

For the world to be interesting, you have to be manipulating it all the time.

Boredom is… a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles.

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.

The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

There’s no one thing that is true. They’re all true.

It would be my guess that Madonna is not a very happy woman. From my own experience, having gone through persona changes like that, that kind of clawing need to be the center of attention is not a pleasant place to be.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.