You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.

One of my big goals as a human being is to continue to write what’s really happening to me, even if it’s a tough pill to swallow for people around me… I do fear that if I ever were to have someone in my life who mattered, I would second-guess every one of my lyrics.

I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.

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.

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.

I was becoming post-ideological.

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are – that is the fact.

I’m generous. I give good tips. It’s just – the way I live my life, ironically enough, is: I don’t want anything. I’m not a consumer. I don’t crave objects.

I’m very aware and very conscious of the path I chose in life, and very aware of the path I didn’t choose.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

I love playing ego and insecurity combined.

I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix.

You have to be smart. The easy days are over.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.

The same thing I did in 2013 is what I’m trying to do in 2014, which is continue to improve, continue to shock people. You know, I have several projects coming up between 2014 and 2015, and hopefully by 2015, I’ll have another hour of stand-up material where I’ll be able to go on the road and tour again.

I don’t see the point of doing an interview unless you’re going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make. So to admit that I’m extremely human and have done some dark things I don’t think makes me unusual or unusually dark. I think it actually is the right thing to do, and I’d like to think it’s the nice thing to do.

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.

Things do not always happen the way I would like them to happen, and I had better get used to that.

Understanding is a two-way street.

I believe time wounds all heels.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

I more fear what is within me than what comes from without.

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.

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.

If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.

When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings – to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

I feel like people can relate to me because we all go through wins and roadblocks and passion and pain, and it’s a vibe.

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

I don’t think that much about my relationship with my mother and what it did to me. I sometimes feel terrible regret about her, what her life must have been like. Often, when I’m enjoying something, I think of how meager her rewards were and how much courage, in a way, she needed to go on living.

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.

I love my friends and my past, and it’s made me who I am.

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

Someone told me something that stuck with me: ‚You have to envision your life, and then go backwards.‘ I’ve been living by that motto for a while, so I see where I need to be. Now I’m just backtracking and trying to get back up there.

I don’t have any regrets. I made all my own decisions.

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

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.

That is my wish, hope, instruction for all of you: Take your education seriously, okay? Always do that. Because I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for my education.

Many people, especially young people, would like to be more independent and on their own. But it is very difficult and they suffer from feelings of isolation. I think that is one reason why young readers support my work.

It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that there are people who can’t or won’t see what Black Lives Matter is trying to accomplish.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

When we’re looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, is able to bend and, most of all, embraces us for our strengths and struggles.

Giving is true having.

I’ve watched a lot of people who became famous who completely change and I think it’s because they tend to believe all the hype that’s out there. I don’t think there’s that much hype about me.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

In order to have friends, you must first be one.

When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.

The poor don’t know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

I realize I don’t do a very good job in keeping up to date, but I try to.

I’ve experienced great things, I’ve experienced great tragedies. I’ve done almost everything I could possibly ever imagine doing, but I just know that there’s more.

If you are not being bullied all I would say – cause I like to talk about the other side of it as well – is you know, be someone that nurtures, and if there’s someone in your class that maybe doesn’t have a lot of friends, be the person that sits with them in the cafeteria sometimes; be the bigger person.

I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: ‚What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.‘

It definitely has learning a lesson about the way you’re living your life. I wouldn’t compare our movie to that, but it has a structure where it’s about a man who doesn’t appreciate all that he has and finds out at the end that life has been great and he has to enjoy that.

One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them.

My father always taught me that when you help other people, then God will give you double. And that’s what has really happened to me. When I have helped other people who are in need, God has helped me more.

I’m not perfect.