When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.

I saw a subliminal advertising executive, but only for a second.

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

I had slumps that lasted into the winter.

Masses are always breeding grounds of psychic epidemics.

That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.

I’m pretty calculating. I take stuff that I know appeals to people’s bad sides and match it up with stuff that appeals to their good sides.

I’ve had some dark nights of the soul, of course, but giving in to depression would be a sellout, a defeat.

I briefly did therapy, but after a while, I realised it is just like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can’t fix the weather – you just have to get on with it.

Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

I write songs that are like diary entries. I have to do it in order to feel sane.

I’m crazy, but I’m not too crazy.

There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.

Sleep is the best meditation.

There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.

Worry and reasoning are two of Satan’s most successful tools. He’ll get us started with one negative thought and then sit back and watch us finish ourselves off.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.

Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.

Hermits have no peer pressure.

The moral disapprobation of society has an impact on behavior in societies.

It is a big temptation to me, when I create a character for a novel, to say that he is what he is because of faulty wiring, or because of microscopic amounts of chemicals which he ate or failed to eat on that particular day.

The simplest and most psychologically satisfying explanation of any observed phenomenon is that it happened that way because someone wanted it to happen that way.

If a leader doesn’t convey passion and intensity then there will be no passion and intensity within the organization and they’ll start to fall down and get depressed.

The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.

The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.

I’m mischievous, but I’m calculated.

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

Total relaxation is the secret to enjoying sitting meditation. I sit with my spine upright, but not rigid; and I relax all the muscles in my body.

I don’t know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

Why does your mind conform? Have you ever asked? Are you aware that you are conforming to a pattern? It doesn’t matter what that pattern is, whether you have established a pattern for yourself or it has been established for you.

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

Propaganda is amazing. People can be led to believe anything.

Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people’s children and publicly admit they can do better are asking for it.

I just want to retire before I go senile because if I don’t retire before I go senile, then I’ll do more damage than good at that point.

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.

Why are women… so much more interesting to men than men are to women?

Defined in psychological terms, a fanatic is a man who consciously over-compensates a secret doubt.

A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that’s making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?

Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not ‚yours,‘ not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.

The personal ego already has a strong element of dysfunction, but the collective ego is, frequently, even more dysfunctional, to the point of absolute insanity.

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

Anger is like a storm rising up from the bottom of your consciousness. When you feel it coming, turn your focus to your breath.

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else.

As social animals, we are extremely susceptible to the moods of other people. This gives us the power to subtly infuse into people the appropriate mood for influencing them.

Hatred is inveterate anger.

We may define therapy as a search for value.

If I didn’t have my films as an outlet for all the different sides of me, I would probably be locked up.

I act on impulse and I go with my instincts.

Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment.

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

SEALs are human beings. We may all have the same haircuts, but we aren’t robots. Some SEALs are great people. Some are not great people. Some have done unspeakably terrible things. You’re dealing with different people, different dreams, different desires.