What it’s like to be me? You know, it’s good to be me. My life is good.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

In this big ball of people, I’m just one grain of sand on this beach.

The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.

The advice I’ve been giving to people all my life – that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you; you can’t give up politics, it won’t give you up – was the advice I should have been taking myself.

Buddhism teaches us not to try to run away from suffering. You have to confront suffering. You have to look deeply into the nature of suffering in order to recognize its cause, the making of the suffering.

I really didn’t consider myself happy or unhappy.

Without being the most confident person in the world, I think I am the right person for Liverpool.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

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

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

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.

If I wouldn’t have found Courtney, I probably would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle.

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

I had a period in my life where I decided that I would never be bored again and that, if I had any free time at all, I would make plans, and I would always be doing things. It actually was great for a year or so, but then I lost all of my friends.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.

I try to teach my heart not to want things it can’t have.

Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.

I don’t want to just revolve. I want to evolve. As a man, as a human, as a father, as a lover.

I don’t consider myself an intellectual. And this is not one of my aims. But I admire intellectual people.

It’s like a jar of salad dressing sitting on a shelf… most of the seasoning settles to the bottom of the bottle. But when you shake that bottle up, all the ingredients mix together and then the dressing can add flavor to a salad. In the same way, we can stir ourselves up and regain the reverence, respect and awe we once had for the Lord.

I’ve had a few semi-toxic relationships, but it’s not what I look for when I’m seeing someone.

Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.

I’m still living at least five parallel lives, honestly! I wonder about it. I have no idea how that happens.

I never get too high on my stardom or what I can do.

There is a need for aloneness, which I don’t think most people realise for an actor. It’s almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you’ll let the whole world in on only for a moment, when you’re acting. But everybody is always tugging at you. They’d all like sort of a chunk of you.

I can handle pain.

I feel confident imposing change on myself. It’s a lot more fun progressing than looking back. That’s why I need to throw curve balls.

I don’t want to be alone, I want to be left alone.

When you are angry or frustrated, what comes out? Whatever it is, it’s a good indication of what you’re made of.

The closest I ever came to getting married was just before I started singing. In fact, my first record saved my neck.

‚Victory Lap,‘ even the title. It’s the accumulation of trial and error; that’s what I represent; trial and error.

Observe all men, thyself most.

There are two kinds of people in this world. ‚I‘ people and ‚we‘ people. I’ve always tried to be a ‚we‘ person.

Growth is the great separator between those who succeed and those who do not. When I see a person beginning to separate themselves from the pack, it’s almost always due to personal growth.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.

Know that any and all thoughts that you have regarding your own skills, interests, and inclinations are valid. To reinforce the validity of your thoughts, keep them private. Tell yourself that they’re between you and God.

I’m not arrogant enough to look back on my career and criticize my choices. It’s really not my place.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

Why go through life if you’re not going to challenge yourself?

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

I’m not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.

I will praise any man that will praise me.

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.

I am my own sanctuary and I can be reborn as many times as I choose throughout my life.

I’m grateful to intelligent people. That doesn’t mean educated. That doesn’t mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call ‚mother wit‘ means intelligence that you had in your mother’s womb. That’s what you rely on. You know what’s right to do.

I think, for years, people have been pushed down by religion, and I don’t say that disrespectfully, but they’ve been shown a God that you can’t measure up to.

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

My dad seemed comfortable with his decision to be a ‚have-not,‘ but I knew that I wasn’t.

There’s room for role models who make mistakes.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

What’s the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?

I’ve always had a problem with the average macho man – they’ve always been a threat to me.

Either you’re the one erasing or you’re the one being erased.

I always believed that when you follow your heart or your gut, when you really follow the things that feel great to you, you can never lose, because settling is the worst feeling in the world.

It’s always a struggle growing up in Akron.

Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.