Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

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.

I do have motivation. A lot of motivation.

I’m intimidated by the fear of being average.

I let the American people down.

One of the greatest lessons of my own life was learning to turn the inner rampage of hatred and anger toward my own father for his reprehensible behavior and abandonment of his family into an inner reaction more closely aligned with God and God-realized love.

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

In fact, my courage and my bravery at a young age was the thing I was bullied for, a kind of ‚Who do you think you are?‘

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

I don’t want to be an action star, an action star’s life is so short. I want my life to get longer, I want my career to get longer.

What’s dangerous is not to evolve.

When I was younger, I felt pressure to become someone else once I became successful.

Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.

Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John.

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.

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

I want to put a ding in the universe.

Have you not learned that strength comes to an ordinary soul when given an extraordinary calling?

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

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.

Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is.

Jesus lived a life that was full of joy and contradictions and fights, you know? If they were to paint a picture of Jesus without contradictions, the gospels would be fake, but the contradictions are a sign of authenticity.

I am God’s vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.

You can’t put your feet on the ground until you’ve touched the sky.

My father probably thought the capital of the world was wherever he was at the time. It couldn’t possibly be anyplace else. Where he and his wife were in their own home, that, for them, was the capital of the world.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

A part of me has become immortal, out of my control.

I’ve always kinda been a little outcast myself, a little oddball, doin‘ my thing, my own way. And it’s been hard for me to, to be accepted, certainly in the early years of my life.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

When I was growing up, there was nobody in my family – not even my mother – who I could look to and be like, ‚I know you’ve never said anything homophobic.‘ So, you know, you worry about people in the business who you’ve heard talk that way. Some of my heroes coming up talk recklessly like that.

‚Victory Lap,‘ even the title. It’s the accumulation of trial and error; that’s what I represent; trial and error.

A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.

If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.

The people of Northern Ireland have sorted out my whole life.

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

If you’re going to spend two years of your life on something, it has to matter to you; you have to be passionate about it.

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

I know I’m a good professional, I know that no one’s harder on me than myself and that’s never going to change, under any circumstances.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.

The question isn’t, ‚What do we want to know about people?‘, It’s, ‚What do people want to tell about themselves?‘

The more I see the less I know for sure.

I try to teach my heart not to want things it can’t have.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.

I couldn’t ever go back home without being something. I probably would never have gone back home. That was definitely a big motivation. To get back home, and not empty-handed.

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.

Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.

If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.