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

With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about yourself – for survival and living day to day with what comes up.

I was always very curious as a young man about why older writers who I met seemed so indifferent to what was going on, whereas I, in my 20s, was reading everything. Everything seemed important. But they were only interested in the writers they admired when they were young, and I didn’t understand it then, but now, now I understand it.

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

I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.

I admire people who dare to take the language, English, and understand it and understand the melody.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

I like actors very much, but to marry one would be like marrying your brother. You look too much alike in the mirror.

I listen to my old records and I think, ‚How did I ever get on the radio?‘

Of course there are moments that you wonder how long you should be doing it because there are other aspects which are not nice, of this lifestyle. But I just love winning.

The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.

We as women, we have to understand that we know more, just even instinctively, than we think we do.

Naturally, everybody has certain things they wish they hadn’t done in life. They wish they hadn’t kicked their dog when they were ten or something.

The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.

There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.

My problem is I am Christian, so I think other people must have success, too; it’s not about me.

I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance.

Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.

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

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

My readers – and I get 400 emails for a day, my readers normally they say, well, you understand me, and I answer, you do understand me also. We are in the same level.

When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.

In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

The history of science shows that theories are perishable. With every new truth that is revealed we get a better understanding of Nature and our conceptions and views are modified.

Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.

It’s not to much fun to know yourself too well or think you do – everyone needs a little conceit to carry them through & past the falls.

Things that I felt absolutely sure of but a few years ago, I do not believe now. This thought makes me see more clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with me.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

I don’t do research. I never have.

Listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply.

I was enjoying myself writing, because I don’t know what’s going to happen when I take a ride around that corner. You don’t know at all what you’re going to find there. That can be thrilling when you read a book, especially when you’re a kid and you’re reading stories.

We are looking for happiness and running after it in such a way that creates anger, fear and discrimination. So when you attend a retreat, you have a chance to look at the deep roots of this pollution of the collective energy that is unwholesome.

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

Anyone who wants to be pope doesn’t care much for themselves, God doesn’t bless them. I didn’t want to be pope.

Seeing myself on the screen makes me cringe. I understand that I am that way – pouty.

Science is nothing but perception.

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.

We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences, and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves: nothing original, pristine, clear.

My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne – to beat her down, hide her.

Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.

The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.

I can’t tell anybody else how to run their life or their business, but I really believe I’ve got a good bead on myself.

I always entertain the notion that I’m wrong, or that I’ll have to revise my opinion. Most of the time that feels good; sometimes it really hurts and is embarrassing.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

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

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

Suppose you could gain everything in the whole world, and lost your soul. Was it worth it?

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.

Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories – and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.

People look at the same passage, and one person will say this is the best thing he’s ever read, and another person will say it’s absolutely idiotic. I mean, there’s no way to reconcile those two things. You just have to forget the whole business of what people are saying.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

Maybe I should say that memory interests me a great deal, because I think we all tell stories of our lives to ourselves as well as to other people. Well, women do, anyway. Women do this a lot. And I think when men get older, they do this too, but maybe in slightly different terms.

A good many things go around in the dark besides Santa Claus.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.

Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency.