You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.

Relish everything that’s inside of you, the imperfections, the darkness, the richness and light and everything. And that makes for a full life.

I’m comfortable in my own skin, no matter how far it’s stretched. Ha ha.

I think what you’re seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they’ve got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.

Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.

Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.

The land created me. I’m wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I’m more at home in the vacant lots.

What the Pope thinks of being gay does not matter to the world. It matters to the people who like the Pope and follow the Pope… It is not a reflection of all religious people.

But men are men; the best sometimes forget.

What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.

I’m never going to be fast, and nobody will ever mistake me for being fast.

To love someone means to see him as God intended him.

I was born on a full moon. Both my children were born on full moons, too. Some people say that’s scary. It is what it is, man, I don’t be trippin‘. I couldn’t tell God when I wanted to be born.

Just as the humble, unassuming, assenting ‚O.K.‘ has deposed the more affirmative ‚Yes,‘ so the little cringe and hesitation and approximation of ‚like‘ are a help to young people who are struggling to negotiate the shoals and rapids of ethnic identity, the street, and general correctness.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

I always like to create things that get attention. It used to be a problem when I wasn’t famous. Now, I can do whatever I want and people have to accept it.

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

Death is acceptable only if it represents the physically necessary passage toward a union, the condition of a metamorphosis.

I don’t go down the road of condemning.

Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few stones upon it.

I don’t really focus on these things – on what tags are given to me or what people think of me off the field – stuff like that. My main focus is always to do well on the field for the Indian cricket team. When people say good things about me off the field, I am more than happy to accept them.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go.

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

Whether you like it or not, you’re forced to come to the realisation that death is out there. But I don’t fear death, I’m a fatalist. I believe when it’s your time, that’s it. It’s the hand you’re dealt.

Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

I am God’s vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.

Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

I think the perfection of love is that it’s not perfect.

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.

Where lipstick is concerned, the important thing is not color, but to accept God’s final word on where your lips end.

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

No one has done a study on this, as far as I can tell, but I think Facebook might be the first place where a large number of people have come out. We didn’t create that – society was generally ready for that. I think this is just part of the general trend that we talked about, about society being more open, and I think that’s good.

I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it, on the inside.

God wants to help us… He loves us… we are His children. But He will not force His help on us at any time. He sees us when we struggle and fight and complain our way through things. And I believe it breaks His heart, when all we have to do is ask Him for help.

My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.

Deficiency motivation doesn’t work. It will lead to a life-long pursuit of try to fix me. Learn to appreciate what you have and where and who you are.

Once you’ve grown to accept something and it becomes part of the system you’ve inherited, you don’t even notice it any longer.

Things won’t get better dwelling on the past. Accept what has happened. Then move forward.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.

The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past.

Gee, its lonesome in the outfield. It’s hard to keep awake with nothing to do.

As you know, I’m an immigrant. I came over here as an immigrant, and what gave me the opportunities, what made me to be here today, is the open arms of Americans. I have been received. I have been adopted by America.

Don’t be a writer; it’s a terrible way to live your life. There’s nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don’t expect anything from anybody.

I want everybody to understand that I am an American Negro first before I am a member of any political party.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

When it’s your time, it is your time.

I’m not into albums that are meant to sound perfect.

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

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

Just because something didn’t work out your way, or somebody disappointed you, that does not change who you are.

You should never give up your inner self.

I will praise any man that will praise me.

I love diversity.

I struggled with being a broke college graduate, and while all my friends were getting career jobs, I was working horrible part-time jobs. That’s why now, even when I get tired, I think, ‚This is what I asked for.‘