Nonattachment to results + self compassion = a supple relentlessness that is hard to match. Push hard, play to win, but don’t assume the fetal position if things don’t go your way.

Our entire lives are governed by a voice in our heads. This voice is engaged in a ceaseless stream of thinking—most of it negative, repetitive, and self-referential.

The ego is never satisfied. No matter how much stuff we buy, no matter how many arguments we win or delicious meals we consume, the ego never feels complete.

The ego thrives on drama. It keeps our old resentments and grievances alive through compulsive thought.

“When you have one foot in the future and the other in the past, you piss on the present.”

As best I could understand it, the Buddha’s main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won’t last.

We suffer because we get attached to people and possessions that ultimately evaporate.

The route to true happiness was to achieve a visceral understanding of impermanence, which would take you off the emotional roller coaster and allow you to see your dramas and desires through a wider lens.

This is where the Buddhists diverged quite dramatically from self-help: They had an actual, practical program. It wasn’t expensive gimcrackery. No spendy seminars, no credit cards required. It was totally free.

In a nutshell, mindfulness is the ability to recognize what is happening in your mind right now—anger, jealousy, sadness, the pain of a stubbed toe, whatever—without getting carried away by it.

We can do more than just think; we also have the power simply to be aware of things—without judgment, without the ego. This is not to denigrate thinking, just to say that thinking without awareness can be a harsh master.

Picture the mind like a waterfall, they said: the water is the torrent of thoughts and emotions; mindfulness is the space behind the waterfall.

RAIN. R: recognize A: allow I: investigate N: non-identification

Bingo: respond not react.

Sam once said in his speech to the angry, befuddled atheists, learn how to be happy “before anything happens.” This happiness is self-generated, not contingent on exogenous forces; it’s the opposite of “suffering.”

The real superpower of meditation is not just to manage your ego more mindfully but to see that the ego itself has no actual substance. Close your eyes and look for it, and you won’t find any “self” you can put your finger on.

... ask yourself the following question: ‘Is this useful’?

Our life is the manifestation of our minds.

The pursuit of happiness becomes the source of our unhappiness.

The brain, it turns out, is constantly changing in response to experience. It’s possible to sculpt your brain through meditation just as you build and tone your body through exercise—to grow your gray matter the way doing curls grows your bicep.

The brain, the organ of experience, through which our entire lives are led, can be trained. Happiness is a skill.

Studies showed that the best way to engineer an epiphany was to work hard, focus, research, and think about a problem—and then let go. Do something else.

Mindfulness, I had come to believe, could, in fact, change the world.

“Practice of compassion is ultimately benefit to you. So I usually describe: we are selfish, but be wise selfish rather than foolish selfish.”

This clunky phrase “nonattachment to results” was my long-sought Holy Grail, the middle path, the marriage of “the price of security” and “the wisdom of insecurity.”

1. Don’t Be a Jerk 2. When Necessary, Hide the Zen 3. Meditate 4. The Price of Security Is Insecurity—Until It’s Not Useful 5. Equanimity Is Not the Enemy of Creativity 6. Don’t Force It 7. Humility Prevents Humiliation 8. Go Easy with the Internal Cattle Prod 9. Nonattachment to Results 10. What Matters Most?

“Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It’s about feeling the way you feel.”

Although I am a public figure, I'm still a little shy. I don't think my own personality is important. I prefer to keep some small dosage of privacy.

What is life without your arms around me What is life without the smell of you next to me What is life without you by my side Cuddle me love me and promise never to ever live my side.

I think in life, you have a choice. You can either be optimistic or pessimistic, and I go for the optimism.

It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.

Find something in life that you love doing. If you make a lot of money, that's a bonus, and if you don't, you still won't hate going to work.

If a woman has one cat, it will invariably turn into 20.

I pace myself by taking a week-long vacation every four months.

What we must do is to sit down together as reasonable people and make our government do what is right, and stop doing what may be wrong-headed or wasteful.

Sometimes, you can't seem to find any song on the radio that you like.

Editors have grown timid... a brave advance is almost inevitably followed by quick back-tracking, generally by dilution and debasement of the original intention.

Sincerity is not a spontaneous flower nor is modesty either.

People think when you have a, quote, 'bank failure,' that that is the end of the bank. And it isn't necessarily.

History proves... that a smart central bank can protect the economy and the financial sector from the nastier side effects of a stock market collapse.

I dropped out of school in the 11th grade because there was no purpose in it for me. I'm not proud of this, and I'm not trying to promote it.

I had a terrible stammering problem when I was young, and as a result I spent a lot of time alone.

The book grew out of the introduction I did for Brady's Gates of Janus. I knew that the writing in that introduction had a better than average chance of being read by people involved in Brady's life - parents of victims, police, Brady himself.

I was a teenager with braces and into sporty dresses with bright colors and cut-outs. For awhile, I really experimented with what I wanted to do. Some really extreme things, I recall.

I've learned a tremendous amount from Oprah.

It's fun to get really intense and emotionally detailed and complicated.

I think I've developed, as many people do, this sense of, 'Don't say the wrong thing, or else people will point at you and laugh.'

My dad took me to John Kennedy's inauguration when I was 8. We come every time, Republican and Democrat, because of this great country.

Thanks to the Japanese and Geronimo, John Wayne became a millionaire.