What good is it being Marilyn Monroe? Why can’t I just be an ordinary woman?

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

My father wasn’t around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, ‚Why me? Why don’t I have a father? Why isn’t he around? Why did he leave my mother?‘ But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, ‚I don’t know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?‘

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.

Language is an intrinsic part of who we are and what has, for good or evil, happened to us.

Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down.

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It’s because I’m not quite an atheist and it worries me. There’s that little bit that holds on: ‚Well, I’m almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.‘

My connection with Brazil is so abstract. My blood and my way of thinking is Brazilian, but that’s it. I don’t tend to go back to the past, and although I have an apartment there, I rarely visit. When I move, I really move.

If I’m a star, then the people made me a star.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

Create a ladder of values and priorities in your life, reminding yourself of what really matters to you.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don’t regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican.

I don’t have all the answers.

Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That’s not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that’s what life needs to be – and that if it’s not that, it’s all screwed up. It’s not.

My pride fell with my fortunes.

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.

A man’s own judgment should be the final appeal in all that relates to himself.

You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is.

I don’t think I’m supposed to boss other people around just because I’m a so-called celebrity or star. I hate that when people act that way. No one deserves it. I’ve seen it happen. I don’t call those people out – they know who they are. Some enjoy that reputation.

If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

Don’t confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.

The only difference between Benito and Bad Bunny is 16 million followers on Instagram. And the money that Bad Bunny has in the bank. Benito had, like, $7. The numbers are different, but I’m still the same. Even my insecurities remain the same.

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.

Most of the time I spend when I get up in the morning is trying to figure out what is going to happen.

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

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.

Fame may go by and – so long, I’ve had you.

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

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

See, ‚A Time to Kill‘ was the one I got famous off of. Big ka-boom, over one weekend. After that, I did films that I really wanted to do.

I let the American people down.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of yourself.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

Testing oneself is best when done alone.

I guess I have always been deeply terrified to really be someone’s wife since I know from life one cannot love another, ever, really.

There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, ‚That person I see is a savage monster;‘ instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.

People like to blame others. I think a person should just look at their own situation, look around them, find out what they wish to do, and seek and go and do that. And that’s it.

I think and that is all that I am.

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

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

I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was ‚call attention to yourself,‘ or ‚think you were smart.‘ My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

Everyone looks at your watch and it represents who you are, your values and your personal style.

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.

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

I just hope people don’t get sick of us. I’m sick of us and I’m in Destiny’s Child.

I think that when you are famous every weakness is exaggerated.

If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?

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.

One of the things that we’re trying to do with Creative Labs and all our experiences is explore things that aren’t all tied to Facebook identity. Some things will be, but not everything will have to be, because there are some sets of experiences that are just better with other identities.

If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company.

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.

For years I wanted to be older, and now I am.

If I had a time machine, I’d visit Marilyn Monroe in her prime or drop in on Galileo as he turned his telescope to the heavens.