“It is easy to consider advice when it is brought forth with care, and consideration, and gentleness. Sometimes people are offended or feel manipulated if you are so blustering, you see. And it's an opportunity to be kind — you know — usually if you're giving advice, it's because you care about people and you love them. So you ought to act that way.
…
If you find yourself to be a — sort of an abrasive type of person, perhaps you might try to be gentle, because the truth is that gentleness and kindness are a lot more powerful than we are led to believe. And if you are like this, and people are telling you it doesn't work, don't listen to them — do what you know is right.”

“The most important person you can ever talk to is yourself, so be careful what you say.
The most important person that you will evaluate is yourself, so be careful what you think.
The most important person you will love is yourself, so be careful what you do.”

““Be yourself” is about the worst advice you can give some people.”

“Write the kind of story you would like to read. People will give you all sorts of advice about writing, but if you are not writing something you like, no one else will like it either.”

“People love you when you're successful, but if you're not, who really cares about you?”

“You're a wonderful person, Jamie. You're beautiful, you're kind, you're gentle… you're everything that I'd like to be. If people don't like you, or they think you're strange, then that's their problem.”

“You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there.”

“Not that human beings need to be violent in order to be human, but if you ever lose the will to control, the will to destroy, then it must be because you choose to lose it. My role was not to force you to be gentle and kind; it was to keep you alive while you decided for yourselves what kind of people you wanted to be.”

“Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of our generation you shall find.”

“I see myself in the contestants. I’m not the one to tell people, ‘You have to sing this way or that way.’ Talent is something God gave you when you were born. I don’t want to give them technical advice. I love mistakes. When talking about art, the most important thing is to not be perfect, … I want to be a fan, and to be a fan you have to conquer my heart. I don’t want to give marketing advice.”