When I was writing ‚Kitchen Confidential,‘ I was in my 40s, I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car.

As a young kid, I really wanted to be rich.

Contemplation of life after retirement and life after death can help you deal with contemporary challenges.

WIth football you can have up to 28 guys you consider starters, and if they can pick up the slack when some aren’t playing so well, you don’t have to turn those two game losing streaks into six-game losing streaks.

I was not an anthropology student prior to the war. I took it up as part of a personal readjustment following some bewildering experiences as an infantryman and later as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany. The science of the Study of Man has been extremely satisfactory from that personal standpoint.

It’s an offseason. These days are valuable for everybody.

What I want for my fans and for the world, for anyone who feels pain, is to lean into that pain and embrace it as much as they can and begin the healing process.

Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

There is a piece of me that likes to fondly imagine my maverick and rebellious nature. But, more accurately, I like to have a nice and cosy institution that I can rub up against a little bit.

Transformation literally means going beyond your form.

I think I have always had a little humor.

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

It was really hard for them to intimidate me. They felt I was intimidating. One of the growers had a name for me: I think it was ‚dragon lady‘ or something like it.

I hated to be treated as a child. I thought it was the worst situation.

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.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

Sometimes I write stuff that strangely predicts what’s going to happen in my life.

I’ve never been a boyfriend kind of girl.

Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.

We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

Every time I think that I’m getting old, and gradually going to the grave, something else happens.

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

I’ve never been pregnant, so I just feel God didn’t mean for me to have kids so that everybody else’s children could be mine.

Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.

When I was a kid, I had a tendency to criticize. But when I did, my mum would whisk me off to the bathroom to stand in front of a mirror. Ten minutes, never less. To think about how criticism is a poor reflection on the one who criticizes.

Even as you make progress, you need the discipline to keep from backtracking and sabotaging the success as it’s happening.

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.

It’s very hard to live with yourself if you don’t stick with your moral code.

If you were to ask me what I want to do – I don’t want to be a celebrity, I want to make a difference.

I can never say ‚why‘ about anything I do. I suppose I can say ‚how‘ and ‚when‘ and ‚what.‘ But ‚why‘ is impenetrable to me.

Naturally, everybody has certain things they wish they hadn’t done in life. They wish they hadn’t kicked their dog when they were ten or something.

I want to solidify as an artist and show that as I grow as a person and make mistakes and learn from them, I’m going to grow artistically.

At one time, I was very angry. I even treated fashion like a kind of crusade: you were either with us or against us, that kind of feeling. Now I know we need ideas, not kicking down a door.

It’s never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but its not always a smooth ride.

You cannot see the changes that you’re dreaming about, because they’re internal.

No one has the right to be sorry for himself for a misfortune that strikes everyone.

It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

Prayer doesn’t just change things – it changes us. If we are diligent in seeking God, slowly and surely we become better people.

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‚If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?‘ And whenever the answer has been ‚No‘ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

No man is hurt but by himself.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.

I’m working at trying to be a Christian, and that’s serious business. It’s like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy – it’s serious business.

I hope not to define myself by suffering.

You’re not a product of your nature. That is your genetic makeup or your nurture, the things that have happened to you. Of course those things affect you powerfully, but they do not determine you.

I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.

Well, there are some things that I just can’t get out of my head, and they start to annoy me after a while. Sometimes they’re of my own creation, as well – and they’re just as annoying. It’s not only other people’s ear worms that bug me, it’s my own, as well.

In one way, I suppose, I have been ‚in denial‘ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.

Most of us aren’t defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.

There are no second acts in American lives.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

I got my own back.

When we see persons of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see persons of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.

Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what you’re doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving something outside yourself power over your happiness. You can choose to not let little things upset you.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

And we are never too old to study the Bible. Each time the lessons are studied comes some new meaning, some new thought which will make us better.