“Real Dreams don’t require you to abandon your family, quit your job, and move to Tahiti with your paintbrush. They just require that you search your soul for that deep dream you put aside-and go for it. And watch your life light up.”

Action helps you think and raises your self-esteem. Good luck happens when you’re in action. Ask yourself, “Does this go toward or away from what I want?” There’s an animal in us, and it has great instincts. Scan for a desire and follow it. Set a goal, any goal, and start doing everything you can think of to achieve it.

You don’t have to get it right the first time.

When you start using senses you’ve neglected, your reward is to see the world with completely fresh eyes.

Originality is genius. If you respect and care for it, it will take you on the ride of your life.

What you want is what you need. Your dearest wish comes straight from your core, loaded with vital information about who you are and who you can become.

Thinking about swimming isn’t much like actually getting in the water. Actually getting in the water can take your breath away.

Isolation is the dream killer.

Each destination you reach only opens out into wider horizons, new and undiscovered countries for you to explore.

Irreverence is a declaration of independence.

It’s essential to distinguish between events that are really beyond your control and events you caused yourself.

Whenever you do what you really love, your heart lifts, your mind opens, and everything changes. You wake up. That’s what true adventure really is.

What you love is as unique to you as your fingerprints. You need to know that because nothing will make you really happy but doing what you love.

In the days before automobiles, people in horse-drawn wagons used to sleep if they were tired. They didn’t worry about getting lost, because the horse knew the way home. Your heart knows the way to your gifts. You can trust it to take you to them.

I believe you can have whatever you really want in this life, in one form or another, sooner or later. All you have to do is take care of your health and be lucky enough to live for a while. But you can’t have it all at once and you can’t have it forever. No life has the room for everything in it, not on the same day.

You can learn new things at any time in your life if you’re willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.

A goal is the basic unit of life design.

I try not to be either optimistic or pessimistic. I try not to think about outcomes on that scale. My job, it seems to me, is to wake up every morning and figure out how to cause as much trouble for the fossil fuel industry as I can.

If I run into someone on the street, that’s one thing. But answering mail for a living? I like a job where you can play and act kind of goofy and have some fun.

We need an equal opportunity society, one in which government does not see its job as picking winners and losers. Where do you go if you want special favors?

As far as police go, if officers are really that scared or timid [on the streets], maybe they shouldn’t be police officers. Their job is to protect and serve and they’re supposed to be the bravest of the brave.

The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything: the better you are with your loved ones, the better you are with your enemies, the better you are at your job, the better you are with yourself.

Even when I was struggling and had horrible day jobs and wanted to be successful but wasn’t finding my way in.

I worked probably fewer jobs than most people, or fewer real soul-killing jobs than other people. I’ve been a typist, a typesetter, a keyliner, cappuccino-maker. I think I’ve been pretty lucky.

The red-carpet thing of premieres and parties is probably my least favourite part of my job.