Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We’ve been so busy damning ourselves for years. We’ve done it all, and yet we don’t take credit for it.

It’s not to much fun to know yourself too well or think you do – everyone needs a little conceit to carry them through & past the falls.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

Take time to gather up the past so that you will be able to draw from your experience and invest them in the future.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

It started to weigh on me that I was responsible for the moves that had made me successful, but I wasn’t reaping the lion’s share of the profits, and that was problematic for me.

America is not just a country, it’s an idea, and real Americans are getting busy.

I don’t pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.

My reputation precedes me now.

I do get recognized, but I must say Edinburgh is a fantastic city to live if you’re well-known. There is an innate respect for privacy in Edinburgh people, and I also think they’re used to seeing me walking around, so I don’t think I’m a very big deal.

Vanity is the healthiest thing in life.

No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that, everyone’s had enough of me to last a month.

All through my writing life, I’ve had this impulse to write autobiographical works.

The prescription for endless war poses a far greater danger to Americans than perceived enemies do, for reasons the terrorist organisations understand very well.

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

The happiest part of a man’s life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

The man who does more than he is paid for will soon be paid for more than he does.

I wake up in the morning and my heart is light, man. It’s not heavy. I don’t have skeletons in the closet on their way out.

Sometimes you recognize that there is a category of human experience that has not been identified but everyone knows about it. That is when I find a term to describe it.

I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me.

Lots of songs aren’t even from my experiences, but they’re about accepting… the dark things about yourself.

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.

It’s a very strange thing being recognized or looked upon as someone special.

The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud yourself.

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.

I don’t know if I’ve ever cared much what others think.

I haven’t changed at all. I’m the same as when I was 11.

The Public is merely a multiplied ‚me.‘

I listen to my old records and I think, ‚How did I ever get on the radio?‘

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.

The people in my songs are all me.

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colours and textures that come alive in others.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.

We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.

Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

Man the individual consoles himself for his passing with the thought of the offspring or the works which he leaves behind.

I woke up one day and thought: ‚I want to write a book about the history of my body.‘ I could justify talking about my mother because it was in her body that my body began.

The more credit you give away, the more will come back to you. The more you help others, the more they will want to help you.

I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

What is true belongs to me!

I often say to people that producing is the best-paid form of cowardice. When you produce things, you almost always get credit if it’s a good record, but you hardly ever get the blame if it’s not! You don’t really take responsibility for your work.

I’m so wrapped up in my work that it’s often impossible to consider other things in my life. My marriage ended in divorce because of this, my relationship with Holly has suffered by this.

If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

I think I could go away tomorrow. I’ve already accomplished something. It’s such a selfish business that sometimes I get sick of myself.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can – that is their secret.

I was very depressed when I was 19… I would go back to my apartment every day and I would just sit there. It was quiet and it was lonely. It was still. It was just my piano and myself. I had a television and I would leave it on all the time just to feel like somebody was hanging out with me.

Sometimes I think my husband is so amazing that I don’t know why he’s with me. I don’t know whether I’m good enough. But if I make him happy, then I’m everything I want to be.

As a sportsperson, the best thing is people recognising you and loving you for what you do. For me, glamour is 100 people in the hotel feeling happy to see you.

I can live for two months on a good compliment.

Each doctor makes a much, much more important job than I do, but at the end, nobody talks about him. We all know about it, but we don’t really think about it.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can’t expect an angel to look out.

I never could get over the fact that The Pixies formed, worked and separated without America taking them to its heart or even recognizing their existence for the most part.

A large majority of Americans believe that the U.N., not the U.S., should take the lead in working with Iraqis to transfer authentic sovereignty as well as in economic reconstruction and maintaining civic order.

I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.

The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice.

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice… that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

Never be ashamed! There’s some who’ll hold it against you, but they’re not worth bothering with.