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.

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 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.”

If that enabled us to predict the succeeding situation with the same approximation, that is all we require, and we should say that the phenomenon had been predicted, that it is governed by the laws.

Never give in -- never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

You have to keep fit being a singer - that's part of the job. You can't do it unless you have incredible stamina.

The cookie-cutter liberal, the standard operating procedure liberal, is really a giant ignoramus. I mean that seriously. They're really ignorant.

One argument against open systems is that they become open to everything, good and bad. Like a Richard Meier skyscraper, the anal retentive, Bauhaus elegance of the Mac does prevent the loose ends and confusion of a less sterile environment. But it also prevents fertility. Apple's development must come from within.

Be moderate in everything, including moderation.

I made a big mistake of my life.

When life puts you in tough situations, don't say "Why me" say "Try me".

When I was 10 or 11, I was on this TV series called 'Dead Man's Gun' and Henry Winkler was a guest star. He hung out with me and my brother the whole time. We had no idea who he was. Our parents were star struck.

The Knowledge of how to give birth without outside interventions lies deep within each woman.

The Sun is such a lonely star. Whenever he comes out to see his friends, they all disappear.

A good magician's performance tells a story. Each act should build on the next, becoming ever more engaging to fill the audience with wonder. It's a bud that unfurls into a flower, meant to woo the audience.

My ignorance is widespread.

Only the holy spirit, the spirit of the lord, can transform us.

A normal recession disrupts people's lives, but a long recession destroys them. You lose output, prosperity, family stability, self-esteem, and many other qualities on what looks to be a semi-permanent basis.

I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture.

Well, I've learned a lot from Bill Belichick. I've said time and time again, before I got to New England, I thought I knew a lot about football. But I think he taught me a lot from A to Z. I still carry it to this day.

To deal with these problems - of world population and hunger, of peace, of energy and mineral resources, of environmental pollution, of poverty - we must broaden and deepen our knowledge of nature's laws, and we must broaden and deepen our understanding of the laws of human behavior.

At the time, I didn't know that bass would not be enough for me. I'm not a bass player because bass is always a background instrument even to this very day.

Bitcoin will do to banks what email did to the postal industry.

An idea has been running in my head that books lose and gain qualities in the course of time, and I have worried over it a good deal, for what seemed to be a paradox, I felt to be a truth.

There is a lot of good quality music being made and from this tour and the touring we've been doing over the 10 years there has definitely been a big pickup in people showing up, especially in girls 18-24.