Washington is a very easy city for you to forget where you came from and why you got there in the first place.

I’m always just surprised when someone writes something about me.

What’s fascinating is, people in Washington would rather spend time in Hollywood, and people in Hollywood would rather spend time in Washington.

Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you.

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

When we understand string theory, we will know how the universe began. It won’t have much effect on how we live, but it is important to understand where we come from and what we can expect to find as we explore.

I made bad decisions. I’m not denying that I made bad decisions.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

My friends, there are no friends.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.

Sometimes when you make a film you can go away for three months and then come back and live your life. But this struck a much deeper chord. I don’t have the ability yet to speak about it in an objective.

I’ve always felt quite singular, even as a child. That I must stay on track to keep my purpose.

I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again – as I always am when I write.

I’m so wrapped up in my work that it’s often impossible to consider other things in my life. My marriage ended in divorce because of this, my relationship with Holly has suffered by this.

Listening to and understanding our inner sufferings will resolve most of the problems we encounter.

I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.

It is true that the king has made a truce with the duke of Burgundy for fifteen days and that the duke is to turn over the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days. Yet you should not marvel if I do not enter that city so quickly.

The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.

What I see, what I went through, what a friend of mine may have went through, whatever – I rap about it.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

When I was in college I did a lot of stupid things and I don’t want to make an excuse for that. Some of the things that people accuse me of are true, some of them aren’t. There are pranks, IMs.

Well, there are some things that I just can’t get out of my head, and they start to annoy me after a while. Sometimes they’re of my own creation, as well – and they’re just as annoying. It’s not only other people’s ear worms that bug me, it’s my own, as well.

We have to stop and be humble enough to understand that there is something called mystery.

It’s much worse to read criticism about your son than yourself.

When I chased after money, I never had enough. When I got my life on purpose and focused on giving of myself and everything that arrived into my life, then I was prosperous.

It was my delusion and naivety that brought me here.

I’m inconsistent, even to myself.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

I don’t really get nervous that much, or if I do, only I know. It’s all inside me. I am good at hiding everything.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man’s life.

People don’t usually compliment your character.

It’s dangerous to read the Internet about yourself when you’re me. Or when you’re anyone in the public eye.

If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.

Maybe ‚loner‘ is too strong a word, but I’ve always enjoyed being on my own.

A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

I wake up in the morning and my heart is light, man. It’s not heavy. I don’t have skeletons in the closet on their way out.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We’ve been so busy damning ourselves for years. We’ve done it all, and yet we don’t take credit for it.

We do not wish to enter Heaven until our work is done, for it would make us uneasy if there were one single soul left to be saved by our means.

When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

I think that, ah, I’m a very goofy sort of person in many ways.

I deeply regret any harm, or any perceived harm, that I may have done to anyone by any behaviour of mine.

You were not created to just get by with an average, unrewarding, or unfulfilling life. God created you to leave your mark on this generation.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

No one can give you better advice than yourself.

Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can – that is their secret.

A lot of times, I run a thought experiment: ‚If I were not at Facebook, what would I be doing to make the world more open?‘

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

I’ve learned a lot since I was a new mother. My approach to struggle and shame now is to talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love and reach out to tell your story.

If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.

Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.

I know my flaws before other people point them out to me.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

Washington still refuses to provide evidence to support the claims in 1990 that a huge Iraqi military build-up on the Saudi border justified war.