If you’ll not settle for anything less than your best, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in your lives

I’ve done everything. Selling door-to-door fire extinguishers… In bars, I used to repair those machines that have 10 different buttons on them to spray club soda and seltzer.

When we are older we are able to live in – and make the best of – one continuing world, but when we are young we feel sometimes that in an unknown and sinister fashion the whole cosmos has been changed, one age ended and another begun when we were not noticing what was happening.

Why is it parents think they help their kids by pretending things are better than they are?

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself and hates them for it

The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortunes, but its fears

One always needs readjustment in his life at some or the other time.

My real guru are my experiences in life – the realisation that you are alone in this world came very early to me.

The more time passes in your life, I think the greater you understand perspective. So I’m happy that I’ve had experiences that have reminded me that most exciting things might not feel so exciting later, and the most disappointing things might not be so disappointing later, either.

I have moments of darkness, of anger, and moments of rage. They do creep up at the most inopportune times. Not to recognize that in my music would give people a sense of sainthood that I don’t necessarily have or even want to have.

In literature, we find the universality of human experience

Forever isn’t long at all, Christopher, as long as I’m with you.

You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.

In Omaha, we were part of the largest African American extended family in Nebraska. In Pleasanton, we would be the chocolate chip in the cookie.

Eating and food are a wonderful part of our life’s experience, and half of us are walking around dreading having to figure out what to put in our mouths.

For about three years I was performing at one bar in East Los Angeles that was like a mean dive bar. You’re in there performing for drunks or bikers, not the most flattering people. I think it helped build my confidence, because you have to get their attention, then make them laugh.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

I have a very broad range of life experiences.

What does the future, that half of time, matter to the man who is infatuated with eternity?

Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we’d give blood.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes

The sight of a child will arouse certain longings in adult, civilized persons—longings which relate to the unfulfilled desires and needs of those parts of the personality which have been blotted out of the total picture in favor of the adapted personal.

One thing you must know—the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life

There are as many nights as days, and one is just as long as the other in the year’s course

You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.

My vision ain’t the same vision my livings ain’t the same living.

The journey is part of the experience — an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca

We didn’t know that we had it all but nobody warns you before the fall.

When I grew up, I lived in the ghettos of Hollywood; it was the most disgusting place to be. I was known as the crazy little kid. I did impressions. Then I realized that’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to be a comedian to please other people.

Justice shines in smoke

Considering all that’s happened in my life, I feel like I’m a pretty levelheaded person that has remained happy and not let my shortcomings overtake the better part of me. I’m fulfilling the things I wanted to fulfill, and I’m still sane.

I’ve always been spontaneous and outgoing… I’ve tried lots of things so I’ve got some good life experiences, which is great ’cause it means I’ve got lots of material to work with as an actor.