Howard Zinn was magical as a teacher. Witty, irreverent, and wise, he loved what he was teaching and clearly wanted his students to love it, also.

Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.

You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

Who’s my hero? That’s a great question… Well, I think my dad is my hero, because he’s someone I look up to every day.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

I’m never gonna step away from stand-up. I can’t. That’s what got me where I am, and that’s also my muse. That’s how I stay level-headed. That’s what keeps me going.

Through my education, I didn’t just develop skills, I didn’t just develop the ability to learn, but I developed confidence.

I really want a movie made on Sachin Tendulkar’s life. That is something I’m looking forward to. There will be so much emotion to that movie.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

Since day one, since the first time I touched the pen, I wanted to be the best at what I do.

When I was young I didn’t care about education, just money and box office.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

I was terrible in English. I couldn’t stand the subject. It seemed to me ridiculous to worry about whether you spelled something wrong or not, because English spelling is just a human convention – it has nothing to do with anything real, anything from nature.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.

What inspires me about rap is that it’s written in an almost poetic way. I just think it’s so cool.

Never have we stolen the intelligences of other peoples. On the contrary, in Cuba we have trained tens of thousands of doctors and other top-level professionals, for free, in order to send them back to their own countries.

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

You learn a lot in life but there are a lot of tools and resources in school that help you grow professionally and personally for whatever goal you may want to achieve.

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

I just am committed wholeheartedly to theatre with no intermission.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.

I believe in this concept that you learn by teaching.

Nothing can come of nothing.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to decide. That’s the great thing about our country – we’re a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.

One of my mentors schooled me on branding before it was a cliche term in the game.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

I like school and I like learning.

Bill Gates has always been a mentor and inspiration for me even before I knew him. Just growing up, I admired how Microsoft was mission-focused.

Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes.

Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.

Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.

Everywhere I go I find that people… both leaders and individuals… are asking one basic question, ‚Is there any hope for the future?‘ My answer is the same, ‚Yes, through Jesus Christ.‘

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

Hope is the magic carpet that transports us from the present moment into the realm of infinite possibilities.

Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do, the library and journalism, those things made me who I am.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.

Any artist, the work you do, if it’s a painting or if it’s a performance, you hope it translates to a common denominator with the people that they see something in their own life in there. Or they see something in somebody else’s life. That’s what’s fun about sharing art.

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

It is my desire, in the office of a Christian minister, to do nothing which I cannot do with my whole heart. Having said this, I have said all.

There’s something about being in front of a live audience that’s fun. It’s a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can’t get it anywhere else. And I’ve been doing it since I was 23, so it’s part of my being – it’s part of my fabric as a person.

Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

Sports are basically our way of feeling sorry for ourselves. Most men can’t become athletes. We’re watching guys who actually made it. We see them dunking and making touchdowns. Then we think about ourselves when we were younger.

Work aside, we come to New York for the possibility of interaction and inspiration.

The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.

At the end of the day, we started playing football because we loved it.

When you’re traveling constantly, every day you become inspired, and it shows in my work, sonically, lyrically, visually. Conversations with women with different accents and stories told in those accents. I like to create characters based on different people I’ve met, and relationships. I like to tell stories loosely based on real-life events.