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?

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.

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

Even sickness becomes an experience that we pass through in happiness because our happiness is not dependent upon how our body feels, but how our spirit feels.

The first time I was cooking for my wife, Stephanie, way before she was my wife, I actually put three chickens on the rotisserie and I closed the grill, which is really a bad idea. But I just wasn't thinking very straight that day. And I looked outside and I saw, like, smoke and flames.

Freemasonry embraces the highest moral laws and will bear the test of any system of ethics or philosophy ever promulgated for the uplift of man.

There are no more white linen sofas in my house. We have a rule here: Anything below 36 inches has to be brown or black - the color of chocolate or peanut butter!

If you break up with a girlfriend or a boyfriend youre in this vulnerable state where youre still kind of half in the relationship with them but youre single and it takes a while to feel solid in yourself again.

In Greece wise men speak and fools decide.

For breakfast I have grits, because I'm a southern girl!

I would talk in iambic pentameter if it were easier.

Dont be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.

To be honest, I was the world's worst vegetarian. You see - I didn't really like vegetables very much. I'd spent most of my childhood terrified of them - horrid bland mushy things. It's only as an adult I realise that part of the problem is my mother's cooking - she hates using salt and has a tendency to overboil things. Thanks, Mum.

'Zolten' is a common Hungarian name, it's my wife's maiden name and most importantly, it's the name of Dracula's dog.

You send a boy to school in order to make friends - the right sort.

I decided to become an actor because I was failing in school and I needed the credits.

My whole family is obsessed by brandy butter. And bread sauce. Then, of course, there will be a lot of wind in the afternoon! We have never disguised the wind side of our lives as a family; we think it's hilarious.

Confidence is one of the sexiest things in guys and girls.

Well, Marx is having a comeback. I hear him mentioned a lot in terms of the global financial situation and the general sense of injustice out there. A lot of economic experts in America refer to him without actually using the M word, but he's around.

It goes way, way back when we were under Sweden's rule. We always think they are better than us. We played against them so often for so many years. Every country has one opponent they want to beat and for us, it's Sweden.

Most Republicans call the show 'The Left Wing.'

3D prefers you to use wider lenses because when things are out of focus, and yet it's in 3D, it bothers you.

For longer than I've been involved in the political process, the Republican establishment has claimed to want to provide an alternative for the black community, yet party elite refuse to show up for the game.

A deceitful person is harmful.

One of the things that distinguishes poetry from ordinary speech is that in a very few number of words, poetry captures some kind of deep feeling, and rhythm is the way to get there. Rhythm is the way the poetry carries itself.