Well, I screwed it up real good, didn’t I?

There are a lot of things I never did, because I believe in watching those true Hollywood stories and I see how easy it is to lose track of your life.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.

We all have done something unethical.

We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to turn us. We can become consumed by hate and darkness, or we’re able to regain our humanity somehow, or come to terms with things and learn something about ourselves.

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

I don’t write so much now. I’m getting on 33, pot belly and creeping dementia.

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.

I’ve had a lot of success; I’ve had failures, so I learn from the failure.

See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

Somebody’s boring me. I think it’s me.

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.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

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.

I just wanted to write something about running, but I realized that to write about my running is to write about my writing. It’s a parallel thing in me.

I’m perpetually lonely.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times.

It started to weigh on me that I was responsible for the moves that had made me successful, but I wasn’t reaping the lion’s share of the profits, and that was problematic for me.

I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.

If I err in belief that the souls of men are immortal, I gladly err, nor do I wish this error which gives me pleasure to be wrested from me while I live.

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.

I like to recede away from classifications. You might say that indicates a fundamental lack of commitment. I suppose that’s true to some degree.

Some people can just let things go, but I can’t, especially if there’s something that worries me or makes me sad.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can’t expect an angel to look out.

We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.

I don’t think I’m tangible to myself.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.

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

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.

The hippie movement politicized my generation. When it ended, we all started looking back at our own history, looking, in my case, for motives of rebellion.

I’m not this horrible, evil person.

Sometimes I feel my whole life has been one big rejection.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Testing oneself is best when done alone.

The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.

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.

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

The more I see the less I know for sure.

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

I definitely connected to the fact that life gets out of control and you end up doing things and wishing you were doing other things instead.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

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

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

I think I have always had a little humor.

I don’t think I am evangelical in my work.

No man is hurt but by himself.