My experiences in life are getting bigger and better. The more stuff I do, the more stuff I talk about – having kids, traveling, going through relationship problems, dealing with things in my own family. All that stuff builds character.

Friendship… is not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.

This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me-and my mother would have believed it.

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.

It’s certainly not wrong to want to be a better person. God gave us that desire.

Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.

I was fortunate and I was lucky that I had a couple of people in my life who cared about me. I had good, loving parents.

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.

If you are against yourself, you will never reach your highest potential. And when you criticize yourself, you’re criticizing God.

Where thou art, that is home.

Even though I was very shy, I found I could get onstage if I had a new identity.

It’s not the destination that matters. It’s the change of scene.

I guess I have always been deeply terrified to really be someone’s wife since I know from life one cannot love another, ever, really.

Yeah, I like to keep myself interested – I’ll kind of throw myself into some area that I don’t completely know or understand, that I’m not adept at, so I’m forced to swim in order to stay afloat. There’s a good feeling that comes from that.

You’re not going to say anything about me that I’m not going to say about myself. There’s so many things that I think about myself; if someone really wanted to get at me, they could say this and this and this. So I’m going to say it before they can. It’s the best policy for me.

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.

Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it’s to have any meaning in this world – and stop being its apologist.

There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.

A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income.

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

Help others and give something back. I guarantee you will discover that while public service improves the lives and the world around you, its greatest reward is the enrichment and new meaning it will bring your own life.

The mother of a family should look upon her housekeeping and the planning of meals as a scientific occupation.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

There’s nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It’s a thing no married man knows anything about.

I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don’t recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.

The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended-and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended.

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic.

When you realize who you live for, and who’s important to please, a lot of people will actually start living. I am never going to get caught up in that. I’m gonna look back on my life and say that I enjoyed it – and I lived it for me.

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

Instead of blaming everyone and everything else for your problems, pray for God to help you take an inventory of what’s been on your mind so you can think about what you’ve been thinking about.

In one day, I have times where I’m feeling great, I feel like I love my life, and then 2:30 rolls around and I’m the angriest man alive. My wife sees it.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

I think everybody’s trying to get to a place in themselves where they conquer what they was afraid of; they achieve some of their life goals, kept their word about what they were trying to do.

My parents taught me service – not by saying, but by doing. That was my culture, the culture of my family.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

People always say when they meet me that I’m not what they expect. I assume they think I’m this super dark and depressing guy, but I like to channel all of those emotions into my work.

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.

America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in a family to go to college – the citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes – the young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That’s what America is about.

I grew up in a musical family; the majority of my growing up was done in Hawaii. It’s what we do. You sing, you dance, you play ukulele and you drink.

Nothing is as obnoxious as other people’s luck.

Because my dad abused me, I was determined to never let a man tell me what to do. God clearly showed me that I needed to be a submissive wife if I wanted to be effective in ministry. The truth is, if we don’t learn to submit to authority, we won’t ever learn to submit to God.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

I have to tell you, my seven-year-old granddaughter said to my daughter, her mother, ‚So what’s the big deal about Grandma Maddy having been Secretary of State? Only girls are Secretaries of State.‘ Most of her lifetime, it’s true. But at the time it really was a big deal.

I always put myself out there. I’m not afraid to commit to something.

I am who I am and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record.

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

I don’t think I will ever be content. I am somebody who is always hungry.

Creative people don’t behave very well generally. If you’re looking for examples of good relationships in show business, you’re gonna be depressed real fast. I don’t have time for anything else right now but work and my daughter. She’s my first priority.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

I’m happiest with my family around me.

In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.

The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.

In all my wild mountaineering, I have enjoyed only one avalanche ride; and the start was so sudden, and the end came so soon, I thought but little of the danger that goes with this sort of travel, though one thinks fast at such times.

I think that when you’re making your way up in the music industry, you have all these heroes and the reasons why they are your heroes. As soon as you get into the industry, your guidelines change a little bit. For me, my heroes now are great people first and great artists second.

My mother loved children – she would have given anything if I had been one.

At the end of the day, I understand that life has road blocks, and life is like school – you’ll be tested; we gotta pass it.