Neal A. Maxwell Quotes

I was a solipsist and a narcissist and much too arrogant. I have a lot more compassion now, but it took a long time.

Changing your attitude from self-centerdness to understanding requires desire and commitment to always try to see things from the other persons point of view.

The act of loving is an act of self-evolution even when the purpose of the act is someone else's growth.

One of the troubles of our times is that we are all, I think, precocious as personalities and backward as characters.

I was a self-centered bore. I was masochistic, and only thought I was happy. When I woke up and said, "there must be something wrong with me", I grew up. Because I never understood myself, how could I hope to understand anyone else? That's why I can truly say that now I can give a woman love for the first time in my life, because I can understand her.

the only way to become a better writer is to become a better person.

I have been vain since birth. I expected other people to like what I did, although my vanity has definitely diminished over the years.

Because of the enormous responsibility, diabetic kids tend to grow up to be the most mature, most realistic people who have a natural desire to reach outside of themselves.

You'll be a good parent when you're ready to no longer be selfish. Until I was about 35, it was all about me. I look back and I'm astonished at how I lived my life - it was totally self-involved.

You don't become a fully-formed human as a female, or even a male, until you're at least 30.

I prefer stories about people who are, in a sense, trying to find better versions of themselves.

People tend to become more emotionally intelligent as they age and mature.

I don't know if 'M*A*S*H' made me a better actor, but I know it made me a better human being.

The feelings we all have as 50-year-olds are different than the feelings we all have as 30-year-olds. That informs everything we do.

More than the hair and the makeup, what is important is to feel the character.

I think the very idea of character, of developing not just grit, but empathy and curiosity, emotional intelligence - you know, the things that I want my own daughters to develop - the idea that we're going to get there through rewards and punishments seems completely at odds with the idea of character itself.

I think the thing about keeping your character fresh is, when you change as an individual, you have to flow with it.

We have a tendency to want the other person to be a finished product while we give ourselves the grace to evolve.

Some people should have more levels of maturity than others, but you know to have a show that's grounded, tethered to reality, if you follow a group of people for six years and you show no maturity, I think that would be inaccurate.

In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self.

We're all cracked vessels, and we're always in process, I think, every one of us.

According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

Adulthood is not an age, but a stage of knowledge of self.

It's very common to think that we're always evolving, that we've changed so much from our younger selves, that within decades we've transformed into these different people. We like to think that. I feel in some ways that I am still so much my younger self. There are ways that I'm different: I feel like I'm wiser and kinder. But I think a lot of the impulses are still the same. I learned that.

Our prayers may be an index of how small and self-centered our world is.