When one has not had a good father, one must create one.

I hate what I look like on TV, and I want to look better, and nothing makes the mothers more jealous.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.

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

Listening to and understanding our inner sufferings will resolve most of the problems we encounter.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.

The work is the work. The work is not me.

Those who know me know I’m passionate about lists, and top of my list of priorities is my family. My wife Joan and I do not consider our legacy to our children to be wealth or fame but the opportunity to pursue happiness by following their own path.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

All ways of living can be sanctified, and for each individual, the ideal way is that to which our Lord leads him through the natural development of his tastes and the pressure of circumstances.

Individuals need to be willing to face truth about their attitudes, behaviors, even what we want out of life.

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.

I fear that many a man’s good resolutions only need the ordinary fire of daily life to make them melt away. So, too, with fine professions and the boastings of perfection which abound in this age of shams.

I want to put a ding in the universe.

Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.

Within all of us is a divine capacity to manifest and attract all that we need and desire.

I allow myself to fail. I allow myself to break. I’m not afraid of my flaws.

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.

Fear is stupid. So are regrets.

A fit body gives you confidence. And there’s nothing more impressive than a great attitude, which you can wear on your sleeve. But you’ll have to remember the difference between being rude and being confident.

Being humble matters.

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

It is more difficult to rule yourself than to rule a city.

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

I grew up in a funny way.

The day you stop doing the small things is the day you think you’re above everybody else.

We are often raised as dependents then given over to teachers. It’s experience and exploration that can transform us and lead to mastery.

Set up a situation that presents you with something slightly beyond your reach.

Never let yesterday use up too much of today.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

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

People have so many hang-ups about how other people live their lives. People always want to keep you in a little box, or they need to label you and fix you in time and location.

I always entertain the notion that I’m wrong, or that I’ll have to revise my opinion. Most of the time that feels good; sometimes it really hurts and is embarrassing.

I’m always cast in these strange men… that’s not me, really.

If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

I don’t ever want to be caught up in a system of thinking I can do one thing ‚cos that’s just… that’s just telling yourself a lie.

Accept the terrible responsibility of life with eyes wide open.

College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

When I was a youngster I lived with different families. I nearly always felt closer to the man of the house. Maybe because I always dreamed of having a father of my own.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

I have a terrifying long list of fears. Literally everything – diseases, spiders… and people getting tired of me.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.

I stopped doing drugs when I was 20. I was finished with drugs before Nirvana even started.

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it’s government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

I couldn’t ever go back home without being something. I probably would never have gone back home. That was definitely a big motivation. To get back home, and not empty-handed.

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

You’ll never rise any higher than the way you see yourself.