Ken Bruen Quotes

Every character is asking: 'What's my place? Why am I here? I don't want the answer to be 'Just because.' You find your own purpose. Each finds the reason to be here and how to contribute.

Never think you can separate who you are from what you're doing.

I couldn't play ball. I couldn't dance. Luckily, the girls didn't want me. Not much I could do about that. So I started to draw and to write. By the time I got to where I was attracting girls, I was already into work, and it was more important to me.

I've gotten this advice at different times, and it distills down to one word: purpose. Why are you here? When you start to get distracted by thoughts such as 'Do I fit in? Does this person like me?' - remember why you're there and what you want to accomplish.

Life itself is inspiration.

I say it's easier to write for other people than write for myself.

I look forward to proving something to myself and others.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

I'm really clear about what my life mission is now. There's no more depression or lethargy, and I feel like I've returned to the athlete I once was. I'm integrating all the parts of me - jock, musician, writer, poet, philosopher - and becoming stronger as a result.

If I didn't have my camera to remind me constantly, I am here to do this, I would eventually have slipped away, I think. I would have forgotten my reason to exist.

It is very important to know who you are. To make decisions. To show who you are.

It's getting harder to make decisions to just want to do something to work... I'm trying to find things that are extremely challenging or mean something to me deeply.

But once I acclimated and really used fame for what it was offering me as a tool to serve my life purpose of inspiring and contributing, then it started to get fun again.

If I'm not a successful human being, who I am?

When you forget everything, there only remains yourself - and that is not enough.

Life, is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming.

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

If I had one singular galvanizing ambition in life, I would try to reverse engineer toward it, but I don't.

Sports don't define us; it is not what we live for.

I had to go off to do my own thing, to get my confidence as a writer, and a performer.

'Who do you think you are?' That's the big one, isn't it? A flourishing life depends on how you answer that.

I can't tell you what your purpose is, that's got to come from you.

Music was always ever present when I was growing up, and it's continued to be the most important and intrinsic part of me. It kept me from going off the rails as a kid, and it gave me rare purpose and self-confidence that I couldn't find from anything else.

Football has molded me in many ways, and I've had great experiences. But when I step back, I know that football is not what drives me. It's not really what's important.

You figure out what you value in this life, and then you go for it. For me, it was freedom.