There’s a rebel lying deep in my soul.

Whoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises.

The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent about it.

A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

I’m sick of giving creeps money off my soul.

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.

I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me.

Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.

I came to China to follow my star and to steep myself in the raw regions of the universe.

There are a lot of people who don’t know me and what I am all about.

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

Changing your mind is probably one of the most beautiful things people can do. And I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things over the years.

It’s very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.

My life is my message.

Observe all men, thyself most.

Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the ‚Not Me,‘ that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, ‚Nature.‘

I often wake up in the night, and I like to have something to think about.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

It’s hard to articulate how I think about myself as a public figure.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

I’m first and foremost a writer. I followed my personal legend, my childhood dream of becoming a writer, but I can’t say why I’m one.

We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.

I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times.

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.

The soul is healed by being with children.

I don’t want to be alone, I want to be left alone.

You can have the platinum album. But, you know, when you still feel like you haven’t quite found your place in the world, it kind of gives a crazy offset.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it ‚the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.‘ The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of ‚Artist.‘

I have learned to know God. I have recast my social belief… All my admirers are married; most of my friends are dead; and I stand with all the world before me, where to choose a path to make in it.

More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.

Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves – and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either.

I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one’s nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves.

It’s hard to be clear about who you are when you are carrying around a bunch of baggage from the past. I’ve learned to let go and move more quickly into the next place.

We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that’s the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

God made me and broke the mold.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

There is no birth of consciousness without pain.

Anytime I feel lost, I pull out a map and stare. I stare until I have reminded myself that life is a giant adventure, so much to do, to see.

Only the shallow know themselves.

I had nothing growing up, but I always wanted to be ‚sexy,‘ even before I knew what the word was.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion.

It is only to the individual that a soul is given.

I found it hard to be young. When I was married in my twenties, I hated being regarded as ‚the little wife.‘ You don’t know what it was like then! I’d never even written a cheque. I had to ask my husband for money for groceries.

A psychoneurosis must be understood, ultimately, as the suffering of a soul which has not discovered its meaning.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

I am not very good with relationships. With anyone. I can’t be locked up with anyone for too long.

I have an obsession with knowing the answers to things. When I don’t know what happened, it just bothers me, gets under my skin, and I need to write about it.

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

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

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.