“The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling, or changing, or dying. The ego is that part of you that loves the status quo—even when it's not working. It attaches to past and present and fears the future.”

“Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.”

“Attachment to spiritual things is… just as much an attachment as inordinate love of anything else.”

“The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.”

“You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future.”

“It’s in the act of having to do things that you don’t want to that you learn something about moving past the self. Past the ego.”

“A lot of my work has to do with not allowing my characters to have an ego in a way that the stomach doesn't have an ego when it's wanting to throw up. It just does it.”

“I'll tell you something. When you see you become part of the cycle of generations, you lose your ego in the process, because you ain't nothin' special. You're just another cipher in the generations. When you devote all your interest into another person, you lose your self-obsession, and that's when you understand what it is. You don't know (anything) without that moment. You don't want anything to harm this helpless being. That's a fantastic change. And that's when you understand what's happening. I never understood anything until my first baby looked at me. I didn't understand (anything). Now I understand.”

“Innovation is a process of rebellion essentially. Unless you rebel, unless you challenge the status quo, how can you innovate anything”

“My ego doesn't need soothing. I don't want him soothing anything of mine, including you.”