And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

Lead the life that will make you kindly and friendly to everyone about you, and you will be surprised what a happy life you will live.

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium... the world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly -- to keep the channel open.

The greatest justice in life is that your vision and looks tend to go simultaneously.

Life is not a problem to be solved, nor a question to be answered. Life is a mystery to be experienced.

A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.

When we are willing to make what wants to be made rather than make what we want, we become open to new directions. We beign to be able to let some of the seriousness out of our artist's life, and we begin to let some of the playfulness back in. It is an ironic fact that most great artists are inherently playful.

Creativity — like human life itself — begins in darkness.

Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards. When people ask me what really changed my life eight years ago, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself. I wrote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming.

I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn’t mine anymore, but one in which I’d found the simplest and most lasting joys.

Recognize that to be happy, you must live the life that you truly want to live. It's your life and you are the only one who can truly determine what is right for you.

Morning Pages remind me that while I cannot choose much of what happens to me in my life, I can choose how I respond to what happens. The trick is getting small enough to inch forward. The past is huge. The future may be huge as well. What remains for me, what is given, is to do the small tasks of the day. First among those taks is Morning Pages, the daily writing of three pages that draws me into the life I have now, the choices I can make today to find beauty in what is given to me.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Most of the time when we are blocked in an area of our life, it is because we feel safer that way. We may not be happy, but at least we know what we are — unhappy. Much fear of our own creativity is the fear of the unknown. If I am fully creative, what will it mean? What will happen to me and to others? We have some pretty awful notions about what could happen. So, rather than find out, we decide to stay blocked.

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind. Don't be afraid of being out of tune with your environment, and above all pray God that you are not afraid to live, to live hard and fast. To my way of thinking it is not the years in your life but the life in your years that count in the long run. You'll have more fun, you'll do more and you'll get more, you'll give more satisfaction the more you know, the more you have worked, and the more you have lived. For yours is a great adventure at a stirring time in the annals of men.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

The three horrors of modern life — talk without meaning, desire without love, work without satisfaction.