We cannot live being obsessed with what other people think about us. It’s impossible to live like that. Not even God managed to please the entire world.

Prison life, fortunately, I spent a lot of years, about 18 years with other prisoners, and, as I say, they enriched your soul.

The thing I always say to people is this: ‚If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.‘

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

Once you start doing only what you’ve already proven you can do, you’re on the road to death.

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.

The reason I talk to myself is that I’m the only one whose answers I accept.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

I am who I am today because of my mother.

I enjoy competition. I enjoy challenges. If a challenge is in front of me and it appeals to me, I will go ahead and conquer it.

Being happy is a matter of personal taste.

My weaknesses have always been food and men – in that order.

Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.

I don’t have any regrets. I made all my own decisions.

I don’t believe in ‚thinking‘ old. Although I’ve transitioned through many bodies – a baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, mid-life and older adult – my spirit is unchanged. I support my body with exercise, my mind with reading and writing, and my spirit with the knowing that I am part of the Divine source of all life.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

In a democracy, the well-being, individuality and happiness of every citizen is important for the overall prosperity, peace and happiness of the nation.

People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.

I don’t see how people are comfortable with seeing other people be great. You can be happy for anybody, but what is your excuse to not want to be great? These people are great because they just say, ‚I’ma do that,‘ and they do it. That’s it. There’s no scientifical process.

We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

I don’t look at my old work. I mean, they made nice books; the books were made without me, the one from last year and the one from this year. I – personally, I’m not interested in my own past. I’m only interested in today – perhaps tomorrow.

By taking responsibility for how you choose to respond to anything or anyone, you’re aligning yourself with the beautiful dance of life.

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

My mother used to tell me man gives the award, God gives the reward. I don’t need another plaque.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

I never fall in love.

A child wants things to be a certain way. When you get to be an adult, you just understand that some people are good, some are not, and you can’t be naive.

Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.

I think it’s a very good thing to leave your country and look at it from afar.

In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.

I was born with a great gift, and sometimes with that comes a destructive streak.

I always was a rich person because money’s not related to happiness.

It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

It’s getting harder to make decisions to just want to do something to work… I’m trying to find things that are extremely challenging or mean something to me deeply.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

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

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

I love people talking about me; I love anybody just looking at me.

Sadly, the truth is, there aren’t many people who can be put in high positions who won’t start thinking highly of themselves.

I’ve been running a full marathon every year for more than 20 years, and my record is getting worse. Getting older, getting worse. It’s natural.

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.

A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body – the wishbone.

You’re not better than anybody else, but you’re not less than anybody else. You’re a child of the Most High God.

Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.

None but ourselves can free our minds.

I’ve done the bad-boy thing. It was fun for a good three months. But the thing about bad boys is, you have to keep in mind, you’re never gonna marry a bad boy.

I will not be concerned at other men’s not knowing me; I will be concerned at my own want of ability.

Spiritual people don’t float around all day on clouds of glory; they live in the real world and deal with real issues in real ways.

We have an epidemic of insecure people in our society today.

The battle is all over except the ‚shouting‘ when one knows what is wanted and has made up his mind to get it, whatever the price may be.

Be content to seem what you really are.

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.

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.

Rioting is a childish way of trying to be a man, but it takes time to rise out of the hell of hatred and frustration and accept that to be a man you don’t have to riot.

Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.

When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.

Jesus didn’t die for us so we could pretend to be something we’re not.

You don’t have to give way to careless speech or complaining. You don’t have to let your feelings get in the way of what God wants to do in your life.

One thing I want to make clear, as far as my own rebirth is concerned, the final authority is myself and no one else, and obviously not China’s Communists.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.