We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

For me, writing has always come out of living a fairly to-the-bone kind of life, just really being present to a lot of life. The writing has been really a byproduct of that.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

It’s kind of like a challenge to myself to be able to hear somebody else’s hook and kind of interpret the words. Because my own hooks, I already know what I mean when I write them.

I love tattoos. And mine symbolise who I really am. I have a Samurai on my left arm. At a subconscious level, I connect to this warrior and model myself on his discipline, skills and honour. There is also a tribal tattoo and a Chinese symbol of faith. I have seen a lot of people getting tattoos just because it’s a trend.

Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.

You don’t have to be somebody different to be important. You’re important in your own right.

I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street.

They would not find me changed from him they knew – only more sure of all I thought was true.

There’s no real excuse for being successful enough as an actor to do what you want and then selling out. You do it pure. You don’t try to adapt it, make it commercial.

As long as my music is real, it’s no limit to how many ears I can grab.

In my research, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call ‚different‘: scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.

I write for myself things that I’ve gone through.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

I live halfway between reality and theater at all times. And I was born this way.

Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere.

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 best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

The more I grow in popularity, the lonelier it gets. Because you don’t really know me. You just know this part of me. You fell in love with that. But it’s way more intricate than what meets the surface.

I am just one human being.

I’m not going to say I’m cool, because I don’t really feel that. I just don’t care at all, and I guess that’s what people think is cool.

Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.

I try never to wear my own clothes, I pretend I’m someone else.

My whole life is a theater piece.

God made me and broke the mold.

I really wanted to be a model when I was little. I loved photography, and I loved being on camera. But I was short and chubby, so I couldn’t. Anyway, being an artist is way more interesting than just being a model because it’s about you and what you want to be. You’re not being treated like a clothes hanger.

I use a stream-of-consciousness approach; if you don’t censor yourself, you end up with what you’re most concerned about, but you haven’t filtered it through your conscious mind. Then you craft it.

I’ve never been one to sit back and go, ‚I’d better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don’t want to lose them.‘

My body is quite tiny, but a lot of the emotions I feel are pretty explosive. They have to come out.

It’s insane that, since the Beatles and Dylan, it’s assumed that all musicians should do everything themselves. It’s that ridiculous, teenage idea that when Mick Jagger sings, he’s telling you something about his own life. It’s so arrogant to think that people would want to know about it anyway!

I’m a spokesman for myself. It just so happens that there’s a bunch of people that are concerned with what I have to say. I find that frightening at times because I’m just as confused as most people. I don’t have the answers for anything.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.

No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.

Marriage destroyed my relationship with two wonderful men.

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.

It’s nice to be included in people’s fantasies but you also like to be accepted for your own sake.

I learn poetry, learn text, and that really keeps you alive.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

When I was 8 years old I became a mute and was a mute until I was 13, and I thought of my whole body as an ear, so I can go into a crowd and sit still and absorb all sound. That talent or ability has lasted and served me until today.

If I didn’t have my films as an outlet for all the different sides of me, I would probably be locked up.

Why lie? I’m not going to be a hypocrite and say the opposite of what I think, like some others do.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

You’re not going to say anything about me that I’m not going to say about myself. There’s so many things that I think about myself; if someone really wanted to get at me, they could say this and this and this. So I’m going to say it before they can. It’s the best policy for me.

I’m so happy I discovered early how wonderful music makes me feel.

Everyone assumes I practise all of my own laws but I don’t. I think anybody who did would be a horrible ugly person to be around.

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

I didn’t try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself.

The best part about being in your thirties is you know what works for you.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

A ‚No‘ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‚Yes‘ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

Power is like being a lady… if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.