I don't think closeted homosexual morticians have the market cornered on self-loathing or sense of shame.

I think I had a shyness about me, I think I discovered acting as a way to break out of that and as a way of belonging, a sense of being special.

I think anybody would be hard pressed not to relate to at least one of the characters, because there's so many different multifaceted people populating this crazy world.

I certainly know there are people in positions of power in the business who lack imagination and, perhaps as a result of that, think of me as 'David'. But I wouldn't really want to work with those people, you know?

So it's really nice after about a year and a half to get back on stage and flex those old muscles.

Ultimately, I'm a mess. I don't mean I'm a mess, like, emotionally - I mean, I think probably everybody's a mess. David's a mess. But. I'm talking about... I'm messy.

I think we're really - we're doing a really great job doing our show, and other shows are doing a great job doing theirs, and we'll just see what people have to say.

My mother is a survivor who's had a lot of things happen in her life that have been very trying.

I'm very focused on "Dexter" right now. I want to make it as good of a show as we can.

It's interesting to play a role where you don't really have to preoccupy yourself with any need to convince yourself that you're not acting.

People feel like they know me from the work I have done, but it's not me.

Yes, I mean, There's nothing like it. There is an added sense of pressure because of that, but there's also nothing like the thrill you get being in the same space with that audience right there and then. And when you do it, it's over.

I like to think I am well-mannered. If I have the option at a breakfast place, I'll go with the grits. That's how Southern I am.

For me, it was more a dramatic shift to go from the stage to the screen.

I don't think closeted homosexual morticians have the market cornered on self-loathing or sense of shame.

I never really considered acting as a career until I moved to New York.

I mean, the competition is really created by the buzz around the Emmys. It's a totally subjective thing.

I'm very focused on 'Dexter' right now. I want to make it as good of a show as we can.

The painter... does not fit the paints to the world. He most certainly does not fit the world to himself. He fits himself to the paint. The self is the servant who bears the paintbox and its inherited contents.

Love is a mutual self-giving which ends in self-recovery.

I would rather take the role and work and make my own money and self respect than to have sex with someone who has a lot of money.

Lying is the most simple form of self-defence.

Sexual self-restraint is only a preliminary stage in the ego's evolution.

The intelligence of the lower forms of animal life, like a great deal of human intelligence, does not involve a self.

If you improve a teacher's self-esteem, confidence, communication skills or stress levels, you improve that teacher's overall effectiveness across the curriculum.

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.

I think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves, whether it's shyness, insecurity, anxiety, whether it's a physical block, and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best self. It's truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that every day.

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?

Self-justification is a treacherous servant.

To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile - that is happiness.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it's unbelievable!

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

No doubt Western civilization has in the past been full of wars and revolutions, and the national elements in our culture, even when they were ignored, always provided an unconscious driving force of passion and aggressive self-assertion.

Housework is work directly opposed to the possibility of human self-actualization.

Having a sense of purpose is having a sense of self. A course to plot is a destination to hope for.

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving.

And partly, the worst thing you could do in my family was need something from someone. So physical strength represented an avenue of self-sufficiency to me.

I think it is important to maintain a sense of self and confidence, not letting either falter for the sake of a particular part or project, no matter how great it might be.

The mind's first step to self-awareness must be through the body.

Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman because it's conditional.

But, sir, they have written me down upon the history of the country as worthy of expulsion, and in no unkindness I must tell them that for all future time my self-respect requires that I shall pass them as strangers.

If we can but tear the blindfold of self-deception from our eyes and loosen the gag of self-denial from our voices, we can restore our country to greatness.

Self-love seems so often unrequited.

Having a baby dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the world of self-absorption.

Work while you work, play while you play - this is a basic rule of repressive self-discipline.

I cannot consistently, with self respect, do other than I have, namely, to deliberately violate an act which seems to me to be a denial of everything which ideally and in practice I hold sacred.

For scholarship - if it is to be scholarship - requires, in addition to liberty, that the truth take precedence over all sectarian interests, including self-interest.