What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.

The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life.

No one can live without relationship. You may withdraw into the mountains, become a monk, a sannyasi, wander off into the desert by yourself, but you are related. You cannot escape from that absolute fact. You cannot exist in isolation.

Some people feel that the world owes them a living.

I try to see the good in everybody, and I don’t care who people are as long as they’re themselves, whatever that is.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

I’ve always written. There’s a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother’s papers were destroyed. I’d written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then.

Every single one of us has a few months here or there that feel like dark months.

If you have an enemy, then learn and know your enemy, don’t just be mad at him or her.

While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.

You know, God gave me a gift to do other things besides play the game of basketball.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

I became a people-watcher when I lost all my friends when I was 12.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

I would love to continue in music, with writing… but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don’t need to be blonde when I’m 60!

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

What interests me in life is curiosity, challenges, the good fight with its victories and defeats.

People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don’t suffer anymore.

I don’t think I’m such an amazing person who needs to be written about.

Sexuality is one of the ways that we become enlightened, actually, because it leads us to self-knowledge.

Marriage destroyed my relationship with two wonderful men.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

I think there is a lot made out of age, and what age you feel.

How one life turns out is not dependent on what people do to us or what they don’t do for us.

Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.

I am never satisfied with myself and that is what keeps me going – I have no post-satisfaction.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

My view is that at a younger age your optimism is more and you have more imagination etc. You have less bias.

I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being.

In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers in itself – limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.

In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society, it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to give, early in your youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that, be a snob.

I can play a lot of different instruments adequately but nothing really well.

I go to all these photo shoots, and each time I figure out something new about myself and what I want to wear.

Never complain. Never explain.

Only the shallow know themselves.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

It’s always a struggle growing up in Akron.

For a long time, I thought I was ugly and disfigured. This made me shy and timid, and I often reacted to insults that were not intended.

It is a hard thing to let go of mistakes we’ve made and sins. God wants us to do that because He knows the guilt and the condemnation will keep us from becoming who He has created us to be.

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.

Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

You have to just make the choices you make in life. I made the choices I made because I believed they were right for me.

I’ve never bought into any sort of hard and fast, this-box/that-box characterization. People are individuals. Yes, they may be expected to be a particular way. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to be that way.

I would never exchange my life with anybody else’s.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

I don’t like it when people who are young act like they’re 40. That’s taking too much on. Putting up a shield and trying to act like you’re so mature or whatever – I don’t try to act mature. Some people might say I’m mature for my age, but it’s not something I’m trying to do, you know? I’m just me.